Life Goes On
by Fencing Supplies
Summary: It was a warm and thick day on which Jim Dear decided to sell the puppies. Their stories. What effect would human like intelligence have on dogs? [Grows dark]
1. A Visit Spells Our Time

_A/N: What effect would intelligence like that shown in Lady and the Tramp have on dogs? This is an exploration of dogs in different circumstances, dealing with things on the same level as humans might and how it ends up effecting them. There's good, bad and ugly. (A lot of ugly)_

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My… would you look at the lot of us! Panting in the throes of our excitement, dragging our wet muzzles over all surfaces we can. Our leads have entwined about the legs of the waiting room chair and our sweet owner is exhausted from trying to contain our antics.

Jim Dear runs his hands around the brim of his hat nervously, lifting it up in greeting, pull it down to shield his eyes in embarrassment, twirling it and clenching it; man moves his hat like dog moves his tail. I love to watch Jim Dear when we go out, the way he twitches his moustache when we pass the bakery and rears an eyebrow at the kissing couples near the fountain. Today though, I cannot spare him much of my time, because there is a poodle across the room and two mutts have just pounced through the swaying door.

How are the bones? That coat looks mighty sleek!

I can smell dogs that have been and gone, the meaty treats up on the counter, the soap that covers the approaching ladies hands, the distress of Jim Dear as he works to untangle us noise hounds, the perfume of the grandmother who sticks her nose high when we bound pass, the medicine perched high on the walls. There are no new dogs to bark at in this next room, but the smells are still thick and stimulate us to shiver.

I am plucked from the pack, gently yet by no means shyly does the soapy lady hold me. She puts me on top of a table which I cannot grip well; she pats and strokes me, pinches and squeezes. I do not pay her actions much mind, I am too busy smelling the table, it has so much overwhelming scents; not just dogs this time, cats as well. How many paws have rested on this table before me? A whole suburb's worth by the smells of it!

I am taken down back to the ground, my stomach drops low at the speed and my puppy loved legs are weak when she drops me from her arms,

"What was it like? Tell me did you feel anythi-!" I don't have time to answer my sister, because now she is the one on the slippy table top. I watch as Danielle has a very different reaction to me, she is not amazed by the vortex of scents, instead by the lady. My sister tries to climb back into her arms and nuzzles the searching arms.

Everyone has their different reactions; Collette poses like she is on display, Scamp sulks, Angel goes stiff, Dad nearly falls asleep and Mum takes is the view.

We're being pulled away by our necks, back into the room before. The good world changes so quickly, the poodle has swapped to a cream coloured cat and the two mongrel dogs into a tutty terrier. The cat flicks its ears back in fright, it is not used to my mob; and the terrier growls unapprovingly, nor is it.

"You coat portrays your aristocracy, yet your children act unbecomingly." The terrier yips to my mother, working its fur up in annoyance. For all my life, days of warm sun, throughout all my clear, clean, sweet life, I have never come across such words.

Mother just shakes her honeyed muzzle diplomatically to the elderly dog. It seemed an unseen brush had smoothed her fur, and all of a sudden there is elegance I have never seen of before.

"I will surely give them a talking when we return to our master's abode, but right now an attempt at discipline will be rather impractical."

In one ear I listen to Mother, in all her pure breed glory, in the other I catch a few sentences from Father, saturated in his street dog drawl.

"You caught that? That smell Scamp ol' buddy? Irresistible for you, makes your stomach bubble?" Scamp plunged his nose to the floor to smell what Father was talking about, but I could catch it from here. Though it wasn't irresistible nor making my stomach bubble. In fact, it reminded me of what Mother had smelt like back during the half moon, shortly after Scamp returned with Angel after his escape.

"That's the smell of a girl wanting puppies." I saw Angel go stiff from where she had been lying between Jim Dear's shoes. The ex-stray must have heard too. Any other time, I might have started a conversation with my friend, who was now growing rather distressed. I would have sat myself down so that I hid Angel from the boys, and started yipping briefly about what was at the top of my mind, which would be enough to distract Angel from whatever was making her pant with anxiety.

But I was too interested in the conversation myself. Did I have to ask for puppies at the vet when I wanted my own? I stayed quiet, pretending to be interested in the packet of bones that was lying up on top of a counter.

Though we puppies are the same age, Angel had seen many more things than us, and something about this conversation was making her pant in anxiety. If I was anything, it was curious. Curious how birds could ride the sky, at the magic of mirrors and of smells; hot and cold smells, young and old, yellow and purple, peppery and sugar dusted, smells were flowing over my mind like sunset over some water's edge.

No time to think about smells, no time to hang onto the conversation; for I am too busy in the midst of a flurry to sniff, too preoccupied keeping up with the striding Jim Dear to listen. I have to be careful because, look, there are so many of us, heaving against one another's sides, I could easily be caught or pushed under Jim Dear's feet.

The further we get from the Main Street, the strange, the exciting, askewer Main Street, the more our sense returns. Soon, as we pad up the paths of our familiar suburb, a conversation strikes up for the first time, a fresh change to the carnival of snuffs and barks.

It is Collette who speaks; she is a pristine replica of Mother, as pedigree looking as any pure Cocker Spaniel, even though she is a cross.

"That old terrier, who you were talking to, Mother, was rather unrefined himself."

"Some dogs are just like that dear, born and raised to think silly." Sighing, Mother's eyebrows draw together. "I hate mutts like him, probably can't smell his own food bowl because he has got so much syrupy shampoo in his coat." The others do not know what the two are talking about, but have started to slowly put together the situation.

"He was very old," I yip from where I am beside Jim Dear, making them turn their heads around as they listen. "It might have been his nap time." Scamp finds what I said funny, and he replies.

"Old dogs are like baby puppies,"

Angel goes stiff again.

"Sounds like an old prune to me." Father huffs from where he stands head and shoulders over his pack. Mother is short and we puppies are young, I sometimes wonder is Father ever feels like a giant around us. "I've come across plenty of them." He looked at Collette in concern, "did he bare his teeth at you?"

"Don't you worry Father; I can pull off the snobby act as good as any show cat." Show cats are very snobby indeed; we all chuff in amusement at the idea. Collette proceeds to puff out her chest, lift her paws higher as she walks and flick her long ears.

"Wow, you do look like a prick!" Danielle was never one for sensitivity.

We are silenced by a melodious muttering from Jim Dear. He is talking to us, or maybe he is just voicing his troubles in hopes a solution will strike up. We pass the trees that have been fenced in so they don't escape and through the shade pools of the peppermints that our neighbour keeps. Jim Dear unlatches our gate and we flow through, eager to get onto the lush grass and have our leads unbitten from our collars.

We are a whole group, an earthy vision, but now we split across our home. Mother goes into the house to check that Darling was alright without her, those two are always so fond and close to one another. Scamp bound off after a resigned Father, into the backyard were they have a conversation to continue, I imagine. Danielle is trying to lure Collette into a scuffle, with nothing but a dismissal toss of the head, Collette prances off into the house after Mother, leaving her sister to choose another target.

Angel is the one being teased now, and the scruffy lunges at Danielle, eager for her mind to be taken away from the two grey boys who had disappeared behind the house. The two play bite at one another's coats and tug their tails, they roll around and disturb a few lady bugs and grass hoppers. Growling playfully, they make me wonder where I fit in this pack; in the house, upon a cushion or in the garden, getting grass stain through my coat.

I always seem to be stuck between ideas; it is as annoying as fleas. Mother tells me I am neither one nor the other; I am something a bit different entirely. Because I don't like getting dirty, but I certainly don't enjoy the boring pillow life.

The thrumming of Jim Dear's heart dims and I realise he has walked away from me. I can smell the sweat that runs under his suit, the anxiety that is gathering behind his eyes, I chase after his heels, because he does not smell well at all. Through the door, down the hall, up the stairs, across the bedroom we find Darling and Baby. They are playing with some wooden cars together, and I notice my Mother and sister, who are resting alike groomed models at the end of the master's bed.

Jim Dear sits down, heavy, and starts muttering placidly. Darling replies, and together they grow hysterical, with joy, then trouble, soon hushed, concerned, tight, distressed, aggressive then eventually they agree upon something. Mother and Collette doze on amongst the waves of the bed sheets and take no notice; they are not as attuned to human's as I am. I stretch out underneath the chair Jim Dear is on and try to figure out what is happening between my people.

After a while more of talk, Jim Dear lumbers out, Baby and I follow him. Together, with our equally stubby legs, we tumble down the last step of the stairs and run to keep up with the striding Jim Dear.

Baby is wrapped in his small jumper and Jim Dear grabs his town hat from where he keeps it, far out of reach, at the top of the coat rack. I wonder if they will take me with them, to wherever they are going, because they surely are going somewhere. But Jim Dear does not grab a lead for me, and pushed me aside with his boot when I try to follow them through the gate. I am left behind; because it seems that Jim Dear cannot hold my lead in his hand, it is too busy encasing Baby's fatty, young one.

I listen to their footsteps dye away, and thread my way off the grass and into the garden, a carpet of early leaf litter crunches under by paws and dream enticing beams of late summer sun steal through the hedges, tree trucks and flowers of Darling's garden. Birds that skip about in the branches above do not startle when they see me, they are tame. I hear some dog calling out, but it is not for me. I smell one of those smoky vehicles pass by on the road, but its rider does not stop at our gate.

I dig deep into the soft soil; it reminds me of chocolate ice-cream, except it is not sticky or cold. It just slips and parts so easily when I drag my claws through it and it is dark brown, an almost black in parts brown. I soon find white, hard white that won't give nicely when I dig at it.

I have found my bone; I take it in my mouth. I love the way it slips between my teeth sometimes and will press against my sensitive gums. I crush it and hear the bone crack; I taste the marrow slip out of the new fracture. I work my tongue along and clean it of dirt. This is what I usually do when waiting; a puppy can spend enough sun dripped time consuming a bone that they will not notice the moon nor stars raise.

The shadows are longer when Jim Dear and Baby return, in a horse buggy this time. I sit up and upset a butterfly that had been resting on my flank. I can't see them; I can't see anything from my spot, deep in the garden. But I am content just hearing them and smelling, once I have hidden my bone I shall tumble my way out of the undergrowth, I promise to myself.

Searching around, under milk berry trees and in the middle of bushes, I find an excellent spot. I bury my worn bone; I need to find a replacement soon, between the roots of an old nut smelling tree. I dig it deep and camouflage the spot well.

I crawl along through the garden until I reach the grass edge. Jim Dear is crouching down and fiddling with something on the ground, I would have ran over and started licking his face, for it is not often Jim Dear's face is within licking distance. But Scamp and Danielle have already beaten me to it; my siblings are nearly hyperventilating with excitement, their stubby tails can't keep still, they round about and kick like mullets. Jumping up into Jim Dear's lap they smother the man with their delight.

Father and Angel come along, but they are more interested in the iron and box. Sniffing it and walking over what Jim Dear was trying to do, it was no wonder the Master started elbowing the pack when they got too close.

I watch from a distance as Jim Dear hits thin bits of fence into the ground. My pack trots about without a qualm, as slowly a cage is made. We do not worry, not when you have a life like ours. Our bodies are ripe with spoils; eyes clear with happiness, voices rich from all the cheers we have sent into the air, coats soft from all the stroking and outstretched hands we have had to wade through.

Scamp struggles when Jim Dear lifts him high and over into the cage, it is entertainment for a while. Scamp turns about, look at me! Danielle is running around and around the cage, after a while she slows and presses her snout through the rice thin bars. A great, gobbling laugh pours out of Jim Dear as he watches. Darling comes out of the house to inspect her husband's work, Mother and Collette trail behind her and join our ramble as well.

Baby sees me and opens his arms wide, I jump up as if shocked and stream across the distance. My hanging ears work their way over my shoulder and I crash into Baby's arms so hard we both fall over. He giggles and hugs me close.

This is where I belong, in arms, against grass, surrounded by a filthy great pack, with a heartbeat pressed into my ear.

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_When I get stuck writing this, I consulted (shamelessly stole ideas from) Cloud Street by Tim Winton; a striking book in itself._


	2. A Visit Takes Us Away

I was surprised when Darling dropped me half of her toast. I was even more surprised that it was sweet with berry jam and fluffy in the centre. We never got passed the good bits off their human bowls. Angel was quite envious of me when I told her later as we followed Darling around the house. The human dusted stills and fluffed up pillows. But we were good friends and soon forgot the injustice of the toast in favour of chasing each other's tail around the sitting room.

Jim Dear had been out during the early morning with a full kit of cardboard and brushes, in the front garden, kneeling down into the dewy grass that sparkled in the newborn Sun. He spread paint around and formed human scratches. Father and I stretched out on the paved path and watched the man go about his work.

"This is sniffing up to be," father said "a swapping of masters." I tilted by silky head; what did he mean? Before I could ask, Father gave me a thoughtful look and tapped off back into our home. To find Mother I guess, she would probably be basking in the sunlight coming through the window in the dining room. That's where she usually spends her mornings.

Jim Dear nailed his work to our picket fence, and hollered for his pack to come. Darling and Baby managed their way out of the house, through the gate and onto the sidewalk. They stood back and looked at the sign in wonder. I worried about humans sometimes. They were now comforting Baby who was tearing up in awe of the cardboard that had been painted with human scratches.

I felt Scamp rush up beside me, his lively pink tongue lolled right out the side of his chomps, and his breathe gushed in and out.

"Annette! Did you notice what was in our bowels?" I farrowed my brows and noticed for the first time that the Angel and Daniele, who had been sniffing the night smells of racoons and owls, had folded inside, the last tail disappearing as I scanned over.

"Bones, bones, you're going to be left out!" Now he was off, clawed up blades of grass flying in his wake and I pounced up after him. Even as we minced up the lawn and across the house's wooden deck, my brother still barked.

"…A great cow hoof and two pig ears, plenty of bloody meat still stuck onto them…"

Left, right, ahead of you, we reached the laundry were our beds and dishes lived. My pack was not a greedy haunt; I did not worry about being left the gritty dabs. They had nosed the bones out equally, everyone getting a great pile.

It was a fair way to start the day. You'd think we were professional bone carvers, the way we went about concentrating on the task. Collette's pampered coat was becoming stained, but she took no mind, she just drew her lips back even more as she slowly sanded away at a dried ear. Father broke away from his thick hip joint to mutter his daughter some advice in how to better chew down on the thin, flat piece of stiff cartilage.

Angel and Scamp where sharing a large bone, cutting away at the fatty meat that grouped around it with their fangs. Danielle was nearly choking on her hoof; she clamped it between her claws and was slowly breaking it apart. I watched Mother over my own bone; she seemed to be distant despite the excitement. Perhaps it was because of what Father had gone to tell her.

Scamp must have heard Jim Dear's clomping shoes, because he was watching the door expectantly before Jim Dear appeared, shadow casting, coat fluttering and all that man managed to do without realising his impressiveness. The Master scooped up the spare bones, my there was a lot, and took them away with him. A lot of us were curious as to what was going on, or didn't want the bounty to be taken out of our sights, so Father, Daniele and Collette gathered their bones up in their lips and padded after Jim Dear. I stayed behind with Angel, Scamp and Mother.

It wasn't long before Mother ambled away in her daze and lost in thought, and it wasn't too long after that in which I started to feel uncomfortable about staying. Angel and Scamp had started to laugh together and lick the blood of one another's muzzles. I didn't have enough education to know what it was exactly, but I could understand that this wasn't a game which you liked others to watch you play.

I set out with the thought of burying my new bone alongside my other, mangled and dithering, one. I glanced back with fright when I heard Angel scream, to see the two frolicking, pinning each other down and rolling about. I quickly shook my head to dislodge the scene and started my way out to the front.

I could smell the trail that the bundle of bones had left about the air which they had passed through. I realised that Jim Dear had been taking them outside, and hurried my pace in curiosity. As I jumped through the flap and out into the summer morning, I was greeted my Baby and Darling, who were having Breakfast outside on the deck.

I could smell the salty streaks that Baby's tears had left on his cheeks, and paused in a moment of concern. But Darling was rocking the child in her lap, he was her pup, I didn't need to drop my bone. Besides, I trotted on down the stairs, Baby was having a privileged morning just like us; I could smell the sugar from the treats that were on the table and the tang of fried egg, which was Baby's favourite.

I saw the rest of the pack and Jim Dear over near the thin cage of yesterday. I didn't diverge from my route, and continued across the springy and lush lawn to the dense garden. Disappearing under the foliage I searched out my hiding spot. Searching and digging kept my blood cool, it eased the itch which I slept and woke with. I could recognise all the smells, their owners and meanings puckered at me and I sneezed back at them. I loved to smell. I loved to find and notice. I loved to feel the easy, giving leaf littered floor split open for me. Mother always said that I was more tunned than the other pups to the stink of the world.

The garden and house were one thing to sniff about in, one exhilarating thing. But what the wind carried from where it had flew from and what the walks held, those unknown smells like that were deeper into the mysteries then I knew. There was work for me. To a curious pup like me, those glints seemed like the whole bloody universe.

I was drawn out of my concealed world by the barks of my Father. A sheepdog was walking with his owner along our fence. When Mother barked to a passing dog, she was most pleasing.

"Why good day, what a lovely smelling owner you have there." But Father, it's as if he is convinced that every dog is plotting to take his home.

"Get out of here, don't you get any funny ideas, these teeth aren't just for talking."

I yawned and watch Father go about his Alpha duty, chest out, back straight, tail up, teeth barred. None of us pups cared much, Father scoffed at us for that. You kids live the good life, he says, you don't understand the way the dog world works. He goes on to say, it's a dog eat dog world, out there.

I ask him though, why does he let our neighbours, Trusty and Jock come into our garden and walk beside our fence. No one growls at them and reminds them to know that this is not their pack's territory. In fact, Mother was over their now, talking to them through the gaps in the fence posts.

I heave a sigh and shove the thoughts aside. Another time, none of this was important, and as far as I knew, none of it was real. We all have good homes and gardens, why would a dog fight and tear your muscles over such a granted thing?

I came over to the others, who were lying some meters away from the cage of yesterday, I could see the bones beside the cage and, fully intending on finding myself one with a lot of meat still on it, started over to the collection. But I pulled short in surprise when I realise that the bones are inside the cage where I can't get them. I sat down and thought about this problem, and Jim Dear seems to understand somehow what I wanted.

He scoops me up, lifts me over and puts me down inside the cage with the bones. But not before he removes my collar.

I see my Mother go cold from over across the yard, my Father barks softly as if he had been meaning to warm me about the fingers that were chewing away at my collar, but had been too slow. I hunker down in the grass to begin with, no sure what to do or feel. My neck feels so empty and undressed without my proof of being loved.

Insecurity is won over in the end, by the bones and denial. Bloody and grainy and my mouth is watering bones. Everything is perfect, Jim Dear is perfect, and life has always been perfect denial.

The badness in my gut eases as family joins me; amongst the bones we ignore our lack of license. Angel and Scamp have matching blue ribbons though, and something about that makes me think that maybe they are fixing our collars. Because surly they would get tired? The head bitting down on the tail so that it won't slip over our ears, their teeth must have worn out of gums gotten sore.

We are lost in the bones and the feeling of each other's fur threaded in amongst our own coats, because this cage is small and we are quite a few. I glance up through me lashes and see Mother and Father watching us worriedly through the tiny bars. Darling threads her fingers through our parent's collars and then are tied up on chains across the yard. They are baying and trying to tell us something, but I can't hear.

I notice it now, it's only us puppies. Maybe we're getting our adult collars? A strike of wonder races up my spine. I couldn't possibly be grown enough, but yet at the same time…

Then other people come, the Masters friends, like all the others have been before them. I am still hanging onto the idea of our collars being changed; we are all still thinking up excuses, I am still spawning reasons in my mind. Even when Collette is lifted up into unfamiliar arms, even when she is carried from us, even when the gate is shut between us, even when she disappears from sight, we still are in forswearing.

Then Scamp and Angel, together, like their ribbons suggested. Now it's Danielle and I, now we are starting to wonder _bad things_. She stares at me in shock as she is chosen next, by a man with hands that look to have been worn down every day and then grown back tougher every night.

She goes and somehow, somehow I just squeak out an I'll find you promise before she gone as well.

And I'm left, and its dark now and the bones are filthy now, filthy with confusion and denial.

Mother and Father tell me all they had figured out, and it makes sense, painful sense. Painful because I never ever suspected, because Collette, the first to go, must think it was just her. Painful because Scamp and Angel are now gone, gone, gone. Painful because the only one that realised she wasn't coming back, Danielle, painful because the look on her face as she drifted away. Painful because it's just me and two lumbering parents, who are like bricks in the background to me down, because I've changed to tunnel vision and can't see outside my own horror at just what had happened.

Painful, because the next day, the sign was changed from "Pups for $25" to "Free Pup"; not that I could know, of course.

Painful because the old lady who eventual took me, probably coming across me on her way to buy some eggs at the market and through "a puppy would be nice." As if I am just a carton of milk, just a nice change in the furniture, just a _thing_. Painful because her hands were cold and weak, heart beating a dangerous new tune to me and smelling of horrid, horrid smells.

Painful because when I looked back from where I was in the ladies trolley, my home, my territory, my pack, my birthplace, my world… it looked so unaffected, it disappeared and folded into the other houses around it so easily.

The only way I could tell it apart, was because it had two howling dogs sitting inside its gate.

People, masters, humans- what were they? A family was made up of dogs, never, never, never again, also of humans.


	3. A Visit Saves Her Damn Life

From my view, the old lady that had scooped me away looks like a drowning body. Some grey, washed out, struggling creature that lives in the deep cracks of her home; a corpse who's illegally beating heart presses and pounds with a stutter. Last night I watched the elder turn amongst her sheets and I know that this human is dangling in the maws of death.

All windows are sealed with valour and curtains draw as if an encounter with light will suck that weak portion of life that remains coiled and coughing up blood inside her. The doors are much the same; numerous iron locks adore their edges and restrain them to their frames. I have entered a cave at the bottom of the ocean; I float about after this sea creature, subdued and as if I had sunk here by way of my concert shoes.

Her shapeless dress sways about as she tries to peel the fridge open, tantalising me with the hope of receiving its lush insides. But she isn't strong enough; our only salvation is in the dry crackers that rest in the easy to pry open cupboard. The lady leans heavily on the counters and walls as she moves throughout the house. She will stand high for minutes at a time before she hurriedly needs to breakdown on the closest bed or chair, wheezing and gasping for lungs that she doesn't seem to possess.

I don't know why this lady purchased me; she can't care for herself let alone another. Sometimes I think I might understand; at times when she is sitting there dying, and knowing it, she will stretch out her ropy, blue arm and I will press my young, warm muzzle to her crying, tearing skin. I think I'm here so she doesn't have to die cold and alone. So I try my best to offer her company in what she has guessed will be her last days.

There is no sun light detectable through the curtain cracks, so it is during the night when I first smell the sickness. It's inside the human, crawling and growing, spreading and destroying. By the time she wakes to my wines it has doubled its tirade, slowed her racing, whooshing blood flow down and has started to emerge through the minute pores in her skin. I can smell it, hear it, and when I try to get her aware by liking her face, I can taste it too, sizzling on my tongue and popping atop my tastebuds.

The lady human pushes herself up and tries to walk to her rusty mirror. She does this every morning, she brushes her hair, changes from her cotton pyjamas to a mothballed dress and puts on her pear jewellery. Why does she do it? Why does she push and exhaust herself so much with his morning ritual even on the days when she never leaves the house? She never has any visitors and can't even find the energy to feed herself properly anymore, so why does this strange human habit come above her health and hunger?

She's going to kill herself if this goes on, she sacrificing all her days' worth of energy to elegance rather than meals. I watch her stumble on the way to the bathroom; something is killing her, and all I can do its watch it inhibit her from my situation on the soiled, creaking wooden floor.

It's midday when she realises; I imagine that pain must have exploded over her corroded bones. The lady clings to the table like a knife is being screwed into her ribs. I start to bark, probably the first since I was taken from home. She cranes her turkey like head around it me and her fluidic, bludging eyes are blanketed in their vein ravaged lids; I howl low and long as her knees fold and she crashes to the disgusting floor and lands in a haunting spectacle.

I howl again, I cry; but the human lady made sure nothing could get out of this house, and by the same law, nothing sure as damn hell is managing to get out.

I hear the pile of bones and skin reverberate the name the human lady had baptised me with; Daffodil. Hurrying over I see the sticky limbs twitch and reach out for me. There was no question to it, I slipped under her arm and burrowing into her arm pit. Close now I could hear the micro-sonic sounds of the slowly silencing lady. The ocean of air that dangerously tips and sways in her chest, the skipping and freezing music of her heart; I can smell the disease as it constricts her gurgling intestines and I stay regarding her like a master piece song as she slowly fads to the edge.

Then, an unusual rage blew up in me; I jumped away from her and raced as fast as my unlaboured used legs could propel me. I smelled for hints of outside air that might have slipped through from outside into the stale, underwater stinking aroma of the inside. I searched for cracks in the ancient floor boards that I might be able to squeeze down into the foundation through or for ruffling curtains that gave away windows that had been left open forgetfully all this time.

There was nothing of the sort; the human lady was stanch in her isolation.

By the twelfth minute of my rage, I found myself balanced on the edge of the threadbare couch, tensed like a tiger and judging the distance to the curtains that sat on the wall some meters away. I felt like a pounding drum on legs, like Christopher-bloody-Columbus, getting ready to sail out, wondering when you get to the edge if you're going to fall off the bleeding map.

I hurled myself at them, feeling like there's angles at my side; stagnant air takes on sudden life as it whistles through my ears and I fly better than a bird for a heat beat or two.

The only thought racing through my head was of a memory, back when days were pure and good, of how a ball had smashed one of the windows in the sitting room with ease. I am certainly bigger than any ball; was all I could think before I impacted at a bruising angle and murdered the grimy window to shards, which bits of imbedded into my meat and rained down on my coat in short revenge.

I had squeezed my eyes shut tight, and was not in any way now ready to peel them open yet. Prickly twigs catch me and felt myself crash through and against branches. Solid ground caught me and held me while I lay in feint sleep. Lying in darkness pain start to hatch along my skin as adrenaline was vacuumed from my system. Finally, I became brave enough to pry my eyelids apart; all I came to see was a covering of glass that twinkled like stars in the setting or perhaps rising sun. Heaving and heavy, by body struggled upright; I saw that I was deep amongst a dead bush, all its leaves were curled over and brown, its thin branches brittle and hanging from strains of bark.

My gasping breath echoed through the garden and I explored it with care. Everything was dead except for a few green, cruel plants which had grown into dictatorships in their own areas of the yard. This yard was dead beyond the plants; I could smell no animals, only the unforgiving taint of human destruction that hangs around in parts of the town where there were factories and too many houses too close together.

I started an awful orchestra of noise and streamed around the prickly yard. There were plenty of holes in the neglected fence and I pulsed through them, across numerous other yards, in multiple levels of desertion. I tried to catch attention and annoy humans to me. But they're not many around right now and the growing light tells me it's because the morning is being born.

I am streaking across another foreign yard when a swearing, smoke breathing, fat job of a man starts towards me from where he was leaning against his back door. They call it being judgemental, but I didn't let him come into reach of me, didn't trust him an inch. I see the next yard is fixed up better and I hear the pray and whine of a dog that is moaning about within. I slip back the way I had come, hoping the stump man with the mad light in his eyes will follow. He does no such thing and I am no crazy crusader as to dive back and try to tantalize him to trail me once more.

I battle back to dead garden of the human lady; I keep my mind on my duty and spin around to the front of the yard. I position myself down and start up a circus, one people can't wait to roll up a newspaper and flog.

In quick time someone visits, they god nearly tear me in half so I lob myself to safety amongst the full, unheeded growth of the weed taken garden. The fair haired, high heeled visitor slams on the door, raving to take the anger out on the owner now that the dog is out of range. That's when it's realised that not everything is chugging along to full promise in the house.

The angry human calms and leaves only to return a time later with a partnering of uniformed others. They crow bar the door open and disappear inside, so I go in after to keep them in my sights. Beneath the noise of their voices when they find the old lady, I can hear the thankful wheezing. As she if carried passed I see her veins are swollen and she looks worse and truly ready to die this time. My back aches, I'm thirsty, hollow-gutted, but I call no attention to me. I plant my muzzle into her palm which had fallen down of her stretcher. Her fingers tighten as she feels me with the certainly of a blessing and I sit and watch as she is loaded into a medical smelling cart and pulled away by two gigantic four hooved beasts.

There spreads a hush and people that had gathered to observe the change to the morning way disperse. Only one person notices me, a more sober man than the rest, he gathers my dangling ear in an affectionate fistful than grumbles away home. I'm all but forgotten, because I've got a naked neck, no one ever saw me or learned I was her dog; I decided what this feeling is like, being the lone dog, the dog pushing on into the darkness of the rest of them.

It's the visit that saves her damn life. It's the visit that god well pushes me onto the streets.


	4. A Visit Down Dirty

I didn't last a day on the streets.

For a wild couple of hours I was running, searching the streets and coursing with the excitement that I might be able to find my way back home. I might be able to find Danielle as I had promised her. I was in the fur of a new dog; for just a moment during that flying morning. The laughter of god boomed at me from someplace across the alley way. A moment.

"Welcome to the pound." Some mutt said, nosing out a huge steel bowl of small biscuits. The cage was spread with newspapers, and the first curious, bloodshot interest was upon me.

"No need to fear," said a black dog through the bars, unable to stop a smile.

"Never go hungry, dear," said the only dog that I was sharing a cage with, who was trying to sympathetically sweeten up my situation. She was the fattest dog I had ever seen, so I believed her on that.

"No need to fear," said the black dog again.

"Plenty of food, dear." The fat dog slid the biscuits around the bowl. "There's so much."

"Sometimes too much for a street dog to handle." A different dog said from his own cage. The fat dog smirked at me and nearly had me jumping out of my coat.

"We're just messing with ya'," she said to a uniform groan of the others. "The food tastes like train line kill," she said through a disgusted mouthful. "But it's all you get."

"Prison food," an old dog spat.

"They're a gift," some dog murmured. "And you don't go bad mouthing a gift."

The fat and black one raised their eyebrows at one another.

"You don't look a gift horse in the mouth," said the fat one, playing along, quoting from somewhere or other.

"Yeah," said the old dog, laughing. "You send it to the knackers before in can tread on your paw."

There was snickering at that, and I noticed that one of the old dog's paws looked squashed and deformed.

"What part of town you from, dear?" The fat dog cocked her mattered head at me as she asked. I just stood still, too bewildered still by my capture to think fast enough to keep up with the unclear mockery shooting between the panting prisoners.

"I was only loose for a day." I looked to my paws to check they were still there, everything was swaying and I starting to wonder if I was catching these dog's madness. I heard the questions float about; then why is she so starved? I realised that my last good meal had been at Jim Dears. The old lady just had trouble enough feeding her own self, let alone me, the little ankle following dog, muted with the sadness of betrayal.

Abused at home than? Terrible times, she's still just a pup. At least she might have a chance at being claimed.

Humans came to the pound and got their heart swept away with the pups. Grown dogs might as well knock at the warden's hatch and ask him if they can get an express to the afterlife and save them having to deal with this horrid queuing he had going on.

"Not a true stray then," some dog growled. That raised a few tails and dropped a few lips. The fat dog just shook her head calmly at the idea.

"No girl, stray and stray alike, we're all in this pound together."

In the night dogs howled to the boulevard shine that broke through the gaps and gasps of the walls. Some wild mongrels chanted along with their imaginings and sounds drift through the dark, detailing what you couldn't see. That was when the pound revealed its true filthy nature. The whining of pain, growl of threats, muffled cry, angry bark, grinding of hips, outbreak of claws scrapping across the concrete floors and the bullying duty that came with earning respect and keeping it.

I learned of life and death, of all the rotting and disgusting bits of living in-between that no parent wants to divulge their pup to.

With the fat dog sleeping close beside me, sharing her fleas, I have to remind myself that no matter how sad or grotty it was, I was still glad for the steady breathing that sounded through the night, it promised protection and warmth- that sound. It retells me of times in a plush basket in a heated laundry that shelters me from the cold that scraps at me now. I am supposed to be encased in warmth, of the heating, clunking climate system but also of the warmth of love, of family.

I am scared for my litter, what terrible place have they been handed off to? How are they surviving the new world that is now revealing itself to be rawer and blunter then a flat broke and drugged hooker? Because I now know what they are; I cast a look to a swollen eyed terrier that is busy curling her tail in a teasing game to the leery that drool and press against the bars. Where is the heart beat that should be pounding in my ear, young and excited to breathe and be and encase me?

The fat dog and I share our wraithlike cage while others are crowded and pushed against the gates in their own. Why is that? I find out later (like I do with everything) that it's because we are soft and too kind to be left with the others. I because, when the warden hooked me up by my scruff I had dissolved and mellowed into his hold as if he was the centre of gravity, diffidently not a street dog move. Her because, when it is dark but slowly streaking awake with colour, she huffs and silently yelps and tells me the babies are coming in an acidy and calm voice as she squeezes her eyes tight.

"From the vet?" I ask her, because even after all this education on the pounds part I still do not understand pups and sexual roles to the bottom of their depths.

"No you foolish thing- from my gut." I brushed off the insult, she was in shrieking pain, but pups coming from her gut- had she eaten them and they are now climbing their way back out? What horror, sure she was weedy and has that desperate rattle to her bark, but I never through this…I circle around her in panic as she collapses and eases to her side like a rolled furniture wagon. The fat dog stretches her paw out and presses it to my leg, it is like she's stroking me, reassuring me, but I can smell, dear god I smell everything and more these days, now that I know what most of the swirling stinks mean. Pheromones and hormones and blood and cells and everything that I can smell are starting to be identified and I am learning to listen to them during these contemptible days.

She is not reaching out to reassure me, she is reaching out for an anchor as she gets plummeted amongst the stormy waves. I creep up beside her and bury my muzzle into her oily coat. I breathe steady and let my lungful's puff over her teeth torn ears and soon she starts to live in synch with my rhythm.

The babies come, well, to her they squeeze, to me they splat and to others they slide. It is instinct now, which is to care for the wet, squirming, bundles and get them clean. I rain my attention on the first and then move on to the second and the third… I work my tongue over them and clean their bodies of funny bags and skin that shouldn't be there. Sometimes my mind slips and I am back in the yard, on ice cream soil, under fragrant shade and losing myself into dreams as I care for my bone; except I cannot stop to sink my teeth into this one and rejuvenate my tastebuds on the sour, addictive marrow that seethes out. No, this one is precious, living with new life and has just been born into a pitiful, pitiful morning that reveals a hideous hole of dog gone disappear.

Later, days later, after time has passed enough for me to have fussed and helped just as eager as any pack sister and grow just as in love as any auntie- my old lady arrives with her wheeling walker and a young, medicine smelling escort. There is shock, but also happiness when I am saved into her every shaking hands, there is also horror when I am pulled away and I realise, they are not coming with me, fat dog and her pups are all to their own.

"Go on Annette, you shouldn't hold yourself back for us. Besides, they are sure to be rescued" They sure are, tiny and cute and fumbling about; but her? Swallow from past hunger and tick ridden seasons? But all I can do in the end is resign to my bitter sweet rescue and ignore the punishing nature of everything.

_There was a dog with me, a little spaniel, where is she? _

_Please don't move too much, you're horribly weak and need these fluids._

_My Daffodil, is she alright? What's happening? Stop poking me you silly quack! Where is that bubble headed girl from before?_

_You _daughter_ left to make the arrangements so you can be moved to a nursing home and I'm afraid pets aren't allowed in a place like that Ma'am._

_But my dear Daffodil, she saved my life!_

_Did she now?_

_Yes, she was acting all anxious so I took my blue pills that morning instead of at night like I usually do, because I thought that I won't have time to do it later if she was upset because she smelt some fire or intruder. Lucky I did or I wouldn't have survived that fall!_

_Is that so? Well… you may not be able to keep this smart dog of yours, but I know of a good home for her._

_Really?_

_Yes Ma'am, have you ever hear of Alert dogs?_

_Diffidently not, a funny name for a breed though, if you ask me about it._

_It's not a breed; it's a type of service dog. It's a rather new concept so they don't have much funding or dogs to work with, I'm sure they will love to take in your precious spaniel._

And so, not a day after the rescue I am given away once more.

I promise myself, I will find my litter mates; I will make sure that they never have to experience a night too long in the pound, ticks or fleas or the sadness of a birth with no lover there to shield them through the pain.


	5. A Visit to Learn Well

The cold snapped a long time ago, a huge and terrible snap. But it is only now that the trees have started to consider trapping glucose in their leaves and setting out to begin the great moult.

I run through yellows, browns and reds that match my darkening coat. It is the time for burgundy and caramel, the season of harvest and Halloween, the days where you feel an air of preparation constantly humming under the carpet. Acorns and minute cones get under my paws, I feel like I am running on marbles and I hurt from how many time I have just not but just quite rolled my ankles. The clip jingles as I leap and the unconcerned bird flutters from my path. The trainer pulls me along, making me match my awkwardly new long legs to her accord.

We aren't training for anything, us two; we are just exercising our heart and lungs in this early morning. I have nothing to say to the dogs that pass us by. I am running to a military gait while they lumber with their children and top hatted men, and I've got nothing to say.

I just can't think of a passing topic to bark about, they might start off with a "good morning" or "going to be a long winter", but I just can't hold up my end of the conversation anymore. It's evident that I feel different from them other dogs, because while they leisure on to their homes I shall be marched back to the kennels behind the police building. You see, this training, you are manipulated and cut into half. You're usually self and a professional side. As soon as the leash is bitten into my chain, the iron plated self of me wakes up and snaps into motion.

I feel separate and this is what the human's intended. So that when I am release to do my job proper, I am removed and professional about it all. They are sapping the curiosity right out of me, and I'm desperately concerned, because curiosity was what I lived by, that tickling that you couldn't quite scratch. The mystery you can't quite solve, the lesson you can't quite learn.

Through the park, down the sidewalk, across the hustling business district, to the police station, around the back of the building, to the left of the kennels and into the cage committed to just me. Spaniel cross, fly away haired, trapped in the system; this is me, rich puppy to mangy child who is now reformed into a growing canine of the government.

This is a big city, with thousands of cold streets, sweaty families and endless places to search- all presenting countless issues when you're on the hunt for lost and promised to siblings. And maybe even, perhaps, making sure the fat dogs litter is safe, reacquainting with my parents and a new litter of unmet family. To approach the rose gardens of my beginnings, squeeze my muzzle through the gaps in the fence and shout Mother, Father! Wouldn't that just be the grandest?

And so I settle back into my life of shifty shadows. My hessian bed, two metal bowls, concrete flooring and standard issue choke collar. I conduct myself upright and tell myself that it's fine, it's fine and I tell myself again, that it is fine enough for me right now, that I am privileged.

I go and lie in the sunlight, because it is warm, it fills me and knocks my muscles out with its lovely, massaging heat. It makes my mind disengage and the humming of day dreams takes over. I may be panting billowing clouds from the run, but still I feel like there are icicle gems beaded throughout my coat. I stretch out on my side and close my eyes, I am thawing myself out.

In the quiet of my isolated end, I can hear the lazy conversation and obtain new, muttered gossip from the dogs that sleep on the other side of the wall, with my eyes shut I listen to them joke and bitch about trainers. And I wait. Because that's what life has cracked up to be. It gives you quite a scare when you realise. You are forced into waiting your life away so that when humans want to waste a few seconds and make you rollover, you're ready and attentive like an obedient animal.

Because you are. You're the obedient animal, like it's an unknown policy you agreed to when you were still in the womb.

The worst part is that I am getting bursts of enjoyment. It makes me feel dirty, but I love the challenged they set up for me. I love discovering and learning about the scents and their meanings. I always have been like that, I suppose. I just get all hyped when the trainer comes for me and I am taken to learn, or rehearse for a show I know nothing about. To carry a note on command and what I should do when there is a sudden drop in the whooshing of a person's labyrinth of tunnels.

But there is something wrong, something that is making me bleed. Maybe it's the stock standard wild part of me, the one that made Scamp escape to the Junkyard dogs, maybe it's my father's street dog make up. Whatever it is, it's deep down in there and, as it feels, apparently tearing my blood vessels apart with quiet, uncontrollable rage.

I think it's because a dog needs a pack. I have nothing here. I have a pair of human legs, a choke collar and dry biscuits. I feel like a piece of property and it gets worse every day. Sometimes I just wish for another beside me, with ears splashed and tongue lolled as they lay by my side.

The smell of sweat and hot breath hits my sensitive nose. A trail of dogs is back from a marathon run, by the smells of it, it is the Fire Department's Dalmatians. They pant past as they trail behind their appointed horse; they must have been learning about how to run alongside the four hooved monsters.

One look over as me as they walk past, I can see the questions in her eyes. What is she doing alone? What job is she learning? Who is she?

It's annoying to see that these dogs' lives shall be so much greater than mine, because they're breed to run alongside and guard the valuable horses of the fire department. They guard the wagon inside the hectic fire zone and calm the horses through the long hours of waiting at the station and they fight off dogs and people that attempt to attack the wagon.

Horse theft is common in this age and the fire horses are a prime target, with their reputation as being immensely athletic and fine spirited. These spotted dogs are destined to live amongst sirens and adrenaline pumping chases, just because their breed has some unnatural calming effect on horses. I'm going to be trotting at the heels of the elderly and the most strenuous thing I have to do is bark loud enough for their deaf ears. My life will be in vain, I fear.

Some hours later my trainer toddles back, my paradise island in the oceans of dead tingling's that follow you as you paddle above the glass waves. She takes me away from the quiet kennel, quiet but for the wind creaking it back on its haunches. I suddenly feel strong and mean; the snark professional that had grown inside me, she takes over and puffs up- she is in her element.

I am put through my paces and we train. I dance to her melody; today I am learning how to locate the medication. She hides it from me, in the dresser, the bathroom vanity, in a cupboard or from inside the fridge. I love having to search and smell of the bag of medical stones. Then we go over the behaviours I know. Good O'! I love the thrill of preforming and the taste of the treat! I answer the doorbell, switch on lights, summon help and guide them to my "collapsed person" and providing an excuse to leave in embarrassing situations by nosing them and being a nuisance.

I do love my job, from bracing my muscles if the person need to us me as leverage to get off the ground, interrupting them at a certain time for medication, assisting them in emergencies, licking their face all to awake them or save them from shedding tears while other people are around, but I know that this is only half of it so far.

Back in the first instances of training, there used to be yards full of us dogs in all our different breeds, rolling and playing together like waves along the coast, as we all learned to work to the human's tune, figuring out our sits from out stays. Slowly though, some dogs got taken out, groups started to peel away into their own specific projects and slowly I was taken away too.

There were wonderful friends, squirming warm bodies, full of so much fun.

I think of the Labradors and it saddens me to know that their breed is commissioned on purpose to die young. There is no such thing as an old retriever; death comes early because they are too stupid to know any better, like running under wheels or hooves, getting shot by their master because they are just too god damn persistent at chasing the chickens, barking at the mailman or jumping on the children. Retrievers were born high and meant to crash low; they are just born with too much energy for their shiny bodies or small brains to handle.

They were good friends, but soon they flayed off on their own way as well, to be dropped from boats in horrible circumstances, made to search for a possible drowning soul in waters that no human dare faces, no matter how much of a reward the act would constitute.

I think of the Collies and the terriers, the pit bulls and the shepherds and me, spaniel mutt who no one really remembers anymore, the one who no one really knows what she's for. There is a pack shaped hole in my heart and every time the life giving muscle beats, the hole tears a little wider.

Sometimes I can hear them, in the dead of a night like this one, when they are howling loudly at the moon. So many concrete walls and training yards separate us though, and even though I try my best to reply, my voice box renders me unable to match their distance.

There is too much and too many between us, for there are the golden Guide Dogs and the tracking Bloodhounds and the wheelchair assisting Doberman's, all those other hounds' to level out my friends' howls and my applies.

I don't see what's so important about my job; I don't see how it saves or affects anyone, this nature that the institute is grinding into me. Sure I serve and help, but every other dog's job has got a point, they all share their service along with someone, and they are all learning their tricks in groups. I've been isolated for over a month now, and I have started to gnaw at my leg in loneliness.

I'm being trained to bark when the whooshing in a person's blood becomes dangerous.

I saved the old ladies life with two acts; it is a terrible turn that only one got noticed, my whining and gloom that made the lady swallow her rock. No one ever learned about the heroic escape; if only they did, maybe I would have been placed in a more suitable job…guide dog or a signal dog or…something.

But still I learn their commands well, because my meals and basket rely on it and there is still that sickening thrill.

The winter morning blooms and generates some energy into the prison, taking over the crawling night. I heave myself out of bed, lick at my water and nibble at new burrs that are stuck in my coat. Life resumes and I wait.

The morning's rowdy football team noise starts up, I listen into snags of talk that are drifting from over the high walls, but none are clear enough for me to understand. In theory I should be able to hear with my doggy ears, but as I found out many months back, my hearing is dull, sacrificed- it seems- to make my nose more powerful than most.

When my cinnamon apple smelling trainer finally comes within seeing range… it's with a cargo booted human that is marching like he's on a campaign trail, these booted humans only train the military dogs. I'm surprised and scared that I might have been enlisted into the military, _Mother always said to be careful what you wished for_. Dear Lord no, I can't keep up with the muscle dogs with breed on their side, I don't have the bravery or the loyalty to run through shrapnel or hunt down a knife welding murdered- it's a whole different league out there in the law enforcement service.

Then I seen a bandage ravelled and nearly mummified German Shepard trailing behind the boots and my heart-stopping-mounting-in-panic moment ends.

It's a dog that I remember, Grady, he's wolfish and overconfident and falls over his feet far too much for his age. I jump up and run to the door, company, glorious dog gone company! No matter how sour and crude it is, I love this dog for visiting me. An old friend has returned- Wacko!

"Grady! You've grown huge now! What happened to ya? You look like you went through a mincer!" I bubbled with laugher in joy and start pouncing around, bowing and jumping. Conversation, friends, fun, games, someone to talk to!

"Let's go chase leaves! How have you been? Do you want to creep up on some squirrels? How's the police force been treatin' ya?!"

Something is terribly wrong. He doesn't talk to be; he doesn't dare look at me. Something is wrong; I used to play Catch My Tail with this dog back in the early stages, sure he smells full of new puberty pulsing hormones and prickling sexual frustrations, but he was talkative and loud back in the months before, _what is going on?_

We are chained and lead along through the compound, him purposefully looking ahead and labouring away to keep up with his terrible limp. And me? I'm purposefully staring directly at him.

I was relieved that I had taken after my father in height; it made these dark, hairy monsters easier to confront and confer with when you were able to look them in the eye without craning your neck. I started with the weather, to ease him into a conversation.

"Handling the cold?"

"Yeah…sure." Yes! Response! And whoa, is that your voice? It's so deep and gravelly and…

That's when I discover that I am just as young and overflowing with chemicals as him. I dwell on that through for a while; I am growing into an adult, turning out to be a full and healthy bitch. Life sure has a way of surprising you. How truly entertaining.

"Too tough for the cold then?" Play it cool, don't let on that you haven't have a conversation since _forever._

"Sure." He sounds really angry, and my muscles instinctively contract into fight mode… no, I trust this dog… its fine… you've just been isolated for too long…you're imagining things.

So I continue on, but a little more carefully now.

"You look rather injured there, run into a bramble bush?" I chuckled at the end in earnest, and child myself mentally for not being carefully at all, _where is your sensitivity young lady?_ I can just here my Mother saying.

It was meant to be a tease, like we used to always do…did we? But he didn't take it that way, the part way grown dog snapped his head around and glared at me.

"If he went for your neck instead, you would be dead, lap dog. Oscar's come out just as bad, don't you go lording because you've got nothing to hold over me…" He was starting to bear his fangs and I in turn beared mine. What the hell was going on in the police dog compound? Where they infighting? This meeting was yielding some very interesting results.

"Got into a fight, hey? What'd you do?" I smirked wickedly and he started at that. I was reminded of how I had grown into a more acidic and sassy animal. Damn aging process, making my personality shift. He hadn't expected me to be like this, he remembers somedog different.

He looked at me for a long moment, than instead of continuing the wandering conversation- he attacked me.

No, I insist, full on lunged and grabbed my scruff in his massive jaws. The humans jolted and started yanking at our leads, like knights dangling at the necklaces of dragons. I could feel my skin being torn as he clamped and shook on my neck. Shit, shit, what the hell is going on? Pain, pain. I twisted around and lashed at his shoulder, feeling blood splash over my lips as I returned the favour, bandages unravelled as I sliced through them, trying to convince the brute to let me go, stop, stop, stop!

And pain gripped as we spin around and tangled up. Once again I was glad for having grown into my father's image, while my mother had teeth, my father had _jaws_. We are matched in height and length, but he is heavier and trained. Quickly I'm on my back and the humans only just manage to save me from being gutted by a breath. I watch him be pulled way and thrashed by the cargo booted man.

It's the first time I actually see a human hit a dog. I'm revolted and taken aback. But then it keeps going and going, and each blow is harder and harder. My cinnamon roll lady does nothing, just screeching on about "this is a tremendously valuable animal of the American Delta Convention" and "that filthy Shepard, bash him dead!" I do not inspire to remember any of this, so I blank it all out and glaze over in shock. I think I might have collapsed, but I'm not too sure.

Later when I am smeared up with every which cream and wrapped all up in bandages much like Grady had been, later when everything has stopped and a still, quiet night has fallen, I tentatively explore my feeling on the experience.

I spewed my guts out.

Grady is removed the next day and never returned, but I had sensed what was going on inside him, I had sensed the way the grieving and confusion chemicals were stimulated during those last moments of peace between us.

It had something to do with his fight with Oscar, the nearly pure black Shepard that was rather steady and quiet. For a power hungry dog like Grady, to be dominated in a fight by a hound like Oscar; it would have been a massive source of frustration and shame. I had also smelt since the beginning, the fear of me. Not me exactly, more of what I could result in. More of what Oscar could do if he was caught doing something out of line; more of a recently over thrown Alpha Male actually, who was not used to being dominated and was scared of stuffing up. _What had that lazy Oscar pup grown into?_

So I sat in the yucky smelling vet room as I recovered and healed my tattered flesh. I could just not figure it out. But fate has a way of working for you at times, because if not for that fight, I would have never been sulking in the vet cage, and if not for me staring idly out the window, I would not have seen a certain dog walk by.

He was brown and limping with past injuries, terribly, terribly wrinkly and horribly, horribly familiar.

"Uncle Trustee, Uncle Trustee, Uncle Trustee!" I howled and howled and never once allowed myself to stop, because that had been Uncle Trustee who lived beside my old home- gods, home- who told us stories of his grand pappy Old Reliable over and over again. _("I don't recollect having told you about my old Grand Pappy Old Reliable." "No Uncle Trustee, you haven't"_.) Gods, gods, a thundering wave of nostalgia is drowning me.

"Trustee, Trustee, Trustee, Trustee, Trustee,"

A head came back around the corner, blinked once at me, then blinked again. Then absolutely lit up when he realised who was howling his name from through the window.

"Why, what are you doing there Miss Annette Ma'am?"


	6. A Visit of Old Faces

"Why, I must admit you have given me a most surprise."

"U-huh, a jolly big surprise Uncle Trustee!"

"Well what do you know? Meeting you in a place like this."

"Meeting _me_ in such a place, meeting _you_ in such a place."

"Now, now, how are you doing now?"

"Oh, life is going ways Uncle Trustee. Do you know of the other's though?"

"The others… I only know of Colette who lives close by- everyone else has taken off on their own adventures." The wrinkled dog chucked at the wonder of life.

"Where about is home Uncle Trustee, I'm very much hoping to visit when I can get away-"

"Ge-get-Get away? Now young Annette; sneaking from the master's…turning stray? You shouldn't possibly think of chasing those sorts of tails. I, I, I couldn't think of why-"

"Uncle Trustee! You need to tell me quick before they pull you away."

"They won't be doing any of that bossing to me, and you should stop being so demanding young lady. Unrumpled that frown and stop marring your youth, you've picked up some very bad habits on your time abound. What type of company are you keeping these days My Annette?"

"Oh Uncle Trustee, I've been in very weak hands and kept very lost company. I just…want…to see everyone…once more…"

And now I was crying, thick oily tears rolled down and as my great chest expanded to my sobs I felt the bandages tighten like evil snakes.

"Not that's not right, dogs of good homes go to good masters, sure and sure nothing too terribly bad has happened to you yet-"

"That's the thing Uncle Trustee! Jim Dear and Darling, they didn't make sure or check up on me, they just passed me off to some women! What if the others are the same? What if they need help and they can't, or, are lonely like I was or, lost or- oh, something terrible could have happen Uncle Trustee!"

"Slow down, steady, steady. What are you talking about? You're in lovely care here, why, I grew up here as a pup and made plenty of friends- you should be fine Annette, so pull your chin up!"

"But that's the thing Uncle Trustee, I'm isolated and alone and, and…I'm confused!" I didn't even bother talking through my hysteria after that and Trustee didn't try to bark over my hurricane noise.

The Bloodhound sat silently, giving me company for some time, but eventually as the call of a human rang out, he bobbed in a silent farewell and left. I stayed behind the cold bars and in the tiny cage.

Why was he walking around with no human or lead? Why was he so sure her home has not been as bad as she said? Why had be never asked about her injuries? _–so pull your chin up!-_

After many more days of the cage, I decided that, indeed, while my life had been in shades of grey, at least I had not ventured into the black. The vision of Grady being beaten till his blood sprayed flashed passed and images of dogs of the pound I had only been brave enough to side glanced at reappeared. With their hollows and scars; their greed and their hate.

At least there had been a strange sort of love for me at the old women's, at least in the pound there has been a growing passion of family, at least here in the kennels there was juicy cuts of hard hide and a neat kennel. A least there _was _a person to take me to the park, no matter how mechanical, and at least there _was_ a vet to heal me.

When I came out of the vet cage and back to the kennels, I had changed from a pup to a dog.

I was a dog now, a bone-afied bitch.

An adult hound.

A canine of the government.

Now my cinnamon roll smelling trainer focuses less on tricks and more on my knowledge. I must know things in preparation for what I am meant to do. It's with excitement and barely concealed impatience that I follow my trainer these days. We don't just run in the park, we divert onto sidewalks and weave our way through pedestrians. I am going places no dogs go, I can smell it.

I learn how to board dinging, donging carriages and pull myself up onto trams and trains. I must get used to the horrible tip and turn of a ferry in rough weather and to farmyards and crowded markets and busy school rooms and the sound of gun fire and the cries of men in the hospital beds and the crackle of fire and…and it gets overwhelming sometimes, for the life of me, sometimes all I want to do is run far, far away.

But no, I am grown up. I am strong and resolute. _–so pull you chin up!-_

My trainer takes it slow with me. She reteaches me with patience if I jump in fright of the new things and guides me carefully through the thundering thunder of human creations.

I must know many things in many ways and I must know how to conduct myself _everywhere._

I am learning, I am growing, I really am. That professional alter ego snaps her back straight when the choke chain collar and leather lead come for me, to bite around my neck.

Except, when we go on our walks, my trainer has noticed that police dogs make me seize up. This is something that I need to know as well, in her opinion.

I'm fine with dogs, I'm even fine with house dog weak German Shepard's, it's the Shepard's with the police department smell, it's the ones who are trained assassins…but it's also the human at their sides, the leather officer whose fist once came down and down and down.

It's more the leather officer than the Shepard, really. But they don't understand it that way. And you can't make humans understand, I find, you just can't.

It is something I just want to ignore, but my cinnamon roll trainer makes me confront it.

In one of the kennel's square, chain linked fenced so there's no escape, fields.

She walks me in, the damn traitor, her hips swishing sweetly like always. I can smell dogs all around, so I do not realise until I see. I realise, I see it, I see with horror, the clink of gate locking behind me as my dramatic realisation music.

There, straightening up when they notice my trainer's presence is a huge, hungry, savage, blood shedding, bone tearing beast.

The dog at the beast's side wags his tail in greeting.

My legs wobble, no; they _faint_, giving out and leaving me to drop to the floor, trying to sink in amongst the brutally short grass.

Did they think I would get used to the terror? Wage an internal battle within myself and come out victorious and clean of fear? Is this meant to rehabilitating me?!

I'm breathing fast and I'm breathing heavy now. I pay no attention to what's going on in the real work, all I can notice is -thump, thump, crunch, - blood, blood, pain-

I come back with a squirrelling frenzy; I kick myself over onto my back, trying to tell the lady to 'please stop dragging me closer!'

The police dog is watching this all bright eyed, his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth, stupidly fixated on when the next treat is going to appear in the death bringer's hand. My cinnamon roll trainer stops dragging me when she realises that I'm chocking, losing oxygen here, everything is starting to go blurry.

They stand and hum, stretching their heads like rabbits, not having expected such a reaction. I take the time to breathe, to just consent rate on my soft furry paws and breathe. They have given up on moving me to them; instead, they are moving them to me. I realise in mounting waves of shock.

Legs! Legs! Come in legs! I hitch myself upright like a newborn calf, teetering and darting around behind my trainer. I try to growl them away, try to look intimidating. Intimidating? Can I even do intimidating? Of course I can, father's daughter, right? Right?

But Father is just a grey slur in my mind, what did he do when wanting to be intimidating? I can't remember!

They are growing tired now, impatient and irritated with the foolish animal. My trainer more so, I can smell, because she is a _she_, she is _woman_; her job wobbles on the edge always in the human's male society, she allows herself no mistakes.

I watch as they gabble at each other like geese and growl at me like angry, mothering magpies. Drastic measures are going to be taken; I can see it in the lines of their naked faces. The pink fat wobbles as they unclip leads and exit the grassed enclose, now watching like they're at the moving pictures, waiting for the show to start from their protected side of the chain link fence.

A weigh has just been lifted, I rise, amazed that a thing as simple as a fence between me and the death bringer can make such a difference. I feel safe, I feel myself working and clunking back into motion again. Rejoice! Rejoice! And there was much rejoicing in the ways of sitting up and panting happily at the cloud filled sky. Smell the daisies on the wind! Smell the sweat of playing children! Smell the presence of what seems a million hounds, all wrapped and hidden between the high concrete walls.

I look over to the police dog, who is watching me with her head cocked to the side in an 'are you alright?' 'do you need me to get you something?' ways. I let out a sigh and lick my nose, dropping my head to let him know that I am fine, I am more than fine. I have escaped the death bringer, I am safe! Rejoice!

He starts to come over slowly, dropping to his belly with a few meters to spare, in the universal dog gesture of 'I come in peace'. I see this and realise that the last few steps are mine to cross, heaving up with the sleepiness that adrenaline withdrawal gives a dog, I pad over to him.

"It's alright, it isn't you I'm afraid of." I let my head swirl around aggressively to the death bringer. "It's the leather man."

"The trainer?"

"I barking hate those types of humans…if he comes back near me I'll chew his goddamn face in half."

I listen to myself.

"Or have an embarrassing panic attack again." I admit under my breathe rolling my eyes and turning back to him. He looks familiar and I try to place his face.

"Panic attacks are serious," he says, suddenly sober and mature. "Scariest thing a dog can endure."

I tilt my silky head. What a sagely dog…must ponder the meaning of life frequently in his cage. He looks up and for a moment and I am hit with old memories, but the name slips off my tongue every time I try to weld it.

"Do I know you?" I finally ask.

"You should," he sounds surprise that I don't. "You're Annette, right?"

I nodded my head frantically, "Uhuh! You remember me?" He knows my name! Someone knows my name!

"Yeah," he said gruffly, shifting and rearranging his front legs. "I'm Oscar."

Suddenly, it connects; the wholesome black pup who kept to himself has grown so much, grown so strong! Grown so…grown so… I think of the bandages which nearly covered every inch of Grady and of the stitches who revealed themselves when he had attacked.

Oscar yawns and I see _teeth..._ I realise what they have done, I realise their deeds.

"What happened between you and Grady?" I ask in a whisper, curiosity leaking out.

He stiffens at my words, perplexed by my quiet voice and then revolted when he realised what I had just asked him.

"Nothing you need to worry about," and walks away with a new toughness I had never seen between his shoulders.

He casts shadows across the afternoon landscape and I wish so deeply that I could be part of a pack again, that I could have an Alpha to look after me and litter mates to tumble with.

I wish so, so deeply that I threaten to fall apart at the seems. The strong dog act is _falling_, its shattering, I can't deal, I want out, I want home.

-_so pull you chin up_!-

Put I'm still so terribly, terribly lonely.


	7. A Visit Which Repersents

I think…it's a mixture. Of this and that and those over there; all together…drawn together.

Down there.

It's the vet who's worried over my leg, how it's always coarse and raw from where I have licked and bitten during the silent, lonely hours.

It's my cinnamon lady, who is now engaged to a man of oil stink who comes to pick her up at the end of the day. A lady working was stretching the boundaries, but now, a _married_ lady working.

She handed in her resignation yesterday and said her last goodbyes to me.

It's the police dog trainer who noticed that I still jumped and flashed him the whites of my eyes in terror when he come near me.

It is all this.

Here he comes; my replacement trainer. The one who smells of bread and wine and talks to me in such a gentle, sure voice. He comes for me, but also for everything else. I, on my lead, am in his right hand, my empty bowls in his left and my bed tucked under his arm. We walk away from my "we don't really know what to do with this new one, stick her out the back, in the old kennels" cage.

I have a suspicion that I am being relocated, and I think I know where. He keeps guiding me in the right direction and soon enough, yep, knew it.

It's the police lane, full of barking, restless dogs all ready for their morning routine to commence.

It's daunting, the way the row stretches one for what seems miles, the way that they all turn and every black and tan face is watching me through strange, demon eyes. The bread and wine man keeps pulling me forward, he expects me to go down _there_?

Oh, oh yes. He does. So you are forced to settle for hiding yourself behind his legs and keeping your eyes down. Because you're a good dog, and good dogs don't take their personal feelings into consideration.

He stops in front of a numbered cage.

Which is already full.

With two dogs.

And he opens the door, sets my things down, pulls me in by the collar and leaves me to socialize when I have not done so successfully in nearly a year. He stands at the doors, you know, so that if I start to get ripped to shreds he's there to step in.

One is moving closer, she's really sleek for a Shepard, and she walks all the way up to me. It's a stare off and I don't even know how I got myself into it. She growls from deep down in her chest and by god woman let's be sensible about this situation please!

I jolt my head up high –yep, there it is, that old stubborn fool in me- and let my lips just _peel_ back. I had realised then that this could only end disastrously, I was prepared to protect myself until the bread and wine man could jab his boot between us.

But it doesn't, because she steps back. I'm hysterically processing how I got away with that when I realises, I am not hers to touch.

The other one is coming over.

This one is pedigree German Shepard if I had ever seen one in my life. She lets me see just how long her steps are and strong her back is as she crosses the meters of the larger-than-I-am-used-to cage. This one is skilled in the intimidation business.

My paws are hot and so I begin to shuffle and circle in anticipation.

"You mean harm?" She asks, gravely and _still stalking slowly towards me_.

"Of course not!" I choke on the words because- because is this what it is all about?

"You plan to dominate?"

"What?! The fuck no!"

These dogs are crazy, crazier than normal dogs. Then I remember Grady and Oscar. There must be something vicious happing down in the bowels of the police dogs. Must be.

Suddenly they put their teeth away and the threats disappear from the air. But we are still all pumping and stretching in our ready-to-fight-when-you-are ways.

We go through the process, the greeting, the knowing, the tail wagging, the smelling, the sharing. By the time their trainers come and the police dogs filter out, we are settled.

The sleek one is Little Jean; she's my age, a quarter sheep dog and sterile (and ashamed of it). She never told me that, it's all in the smells, you see.

The bigger one is Dizzy, she's a year older, having failed the graduation test last season, and she's pumped full of testosterone no female should be have inside her body.

My wine and bread trainer has lit up a cigarette and is busy breathing the corridor full of smoke. I settle down into my bed and let my eyes snap shut. It was a very tiring morning.

Once my new man has finished, he clips me up and takes me out of the kennels, down to the streets. He's different to my cinnamon lady in more ways than one. With my lady, she walks high, she walks mighty and we go the same route every time we go. This bread and wine man through, his shirt is always half untucked, he slouches and walks with a swagger, he always ends up leading me down silent streets I have never touched with my eyes or paws before.

When he turns through the cracks of the town, past bleeding kneed children and swollen eyed wives, I always notice his steps jump more. He likes the backstreets, he likes the romance and danger. He likes these things like he likes the women we meet.

They all think they are his one true lover; he certainly kisses and fondles them with enough passion to justify such thinking. But no, no you are not true nor even love, there are numerous others which he treats just the same.

I have met them all through these last months of training. I think, if someone was to ask this bread and wine man which girl he loved the best, he might in fact say me.

Brodie, the wiry spaniel who has never thrown a boiling kettle at him for being late, as never demanded that all his time should belong to me only, has never demanded any money, any jewellery, any clothes.

No, we have a simple understanding; I have seen all of him, bare and spread out before, his womanising, his drug smoking, his delusional father who is strapped in a hospital bed to keep from killing himself. I know, that to him, my sweet, quite understanding, is truly something to behold.

I jump my front paws on the side of the fountain so I can look into the gushing, clear, cool water. We watch together as he tosses a bronze coin in. It hardly slashes and sinks, landing with a clunk on the bottom of the white and mystical ocean.

As it was falling, the high lunch time Sun had caught its angles, and for a while there, the water was filled with darting, golden, pint sized fish.

"Majestic" He whispers, knees cracking as he kneels down to run his fingers through my fur. I like my fur; it seems to have represented me. Back when was a pup, it was golden, now as a dog, it was darkened to deep brown. Mother is golden and father is grey; where did this dark brown come from?

My heart.

We know each other, in ways the cinnamon lady never did. We spend hours, lifetimes really, just together, just resting in the midst of spring, upon the benches in the park, letting the rustle of the thousand year old trees above us be our conversation.

Just because you like dogs, does not mean you're a dog person.

"And then I jumped and grabbed him in my jaws!" Little Jean laughed and flopped to the ground, so close to me that the dust she raised into the air settled on top of my coat. She turns her head to me.

"I love these types of days." I let my mouth turn, slowly, into a sad smile. Little Jean and Dizzy always rush to tell me about their days, about the hunting, the fighting, the drug sniffing and cart chasing. And they love their jobs, they do, they glow with it.

They will fall asleep with the presence of happiness, of all is good and of that life can never be better. While I, I shall be a horrible clash of brown fur in their uniform black and tan sleeping pile. All along the rows, it is just those two colours. It does not make me sad, it is just a sick metaphor to how I feel, deep down.

They are like butterflies, while I, I am like a haunting funeral song.

I next day, the bread and wine man and I went to a funeral.

And I listened to those songs and I watched those people. Yes, it was perfect for how I was now, in this time of life.

It's the faces of the mourning wife who, when the instruments stop but the singer's beautiful, hollow voice continues on for one last lungful, it's that face which has just found her peace in amongst the turmoil.

So black and blue and deep, this turmoil, like nothing you could ever see. Only feel.

I find it fitting that when we come out of the dusty and dark church, small and wooden and stale, the Sun is so bright that everyone has to squint they're eyes against it. The Shepard's, I heave, this is them.

And I look back, to get the last glimpse of me.

But I see something else off to the side which startles my emotional journey, walking on her lead, steady and splendid.

A sister.


	8. A Saturday Sorrow

My master is on his way to the Saturday Markets. To by vegetables for my lady to cook for dinner, we are walking through these sunny streets.

Through the midday glare of the unusually temperamental spring, I hear a shrill voice.

"Collette!" I turn me head, startled, I strain against my lead to get a view of whoever managed to say me name in such a way. This dog who called for me, she pronounced me name like my first family did. They do not let the sounds roll off like some French soup, they do not drag nor sharpen the vowels. This dog has barked my name with the accent of my first family. I am spinning my head around while keeping up with my busy master; I am try to see this dog before I have to walk around the corner.

But the only dogs I can see right now is a shaggy grey in the distance, a collie running beside a young child ahead and a…a dog who is currently wrestling with her master in such an shameful way, it seems she is determined to disobey her order and come to- she has broken free, and is now flying, lead streaming out behind her to…me.

I'm trying to place this dog, but I cannot, she is brown like no one in my family was and as she comes closer, she is big like only my father.

And she comes closer still, and her muzzle is brought out of the shadows of the looming church and I recognise her. Annette.

"Collette! Collette!" She skids to a halt in front of me and I fully realise how she has grown.

She has grown wild and strong, she has grown so that my head come to her shoulder and she has grown rich brown, so much that I think I see red halloing her when the Sun hits just right.

What is she expecting me to say? To respond to her appalling behaviour in what way, exactly? No sort of conversation is possible, not with my master trying to slap her away and her human no having caught up, lunging for her collar.

She is throwing herself into this, even when she is being pulled away by her neck, choking herself. Her words shock me.

"Are you fine?" It is not in the way of 'how do you do?' or 'are you going well' what most people greet each other with, it's in fact in the way of a pure, animistic need to know that _are_ _you are well?_

I do not get time to answer my sister, because I have been dragged around the corner by my master who is hurrying to distance himself from the unruly and unbecoming man and dog. Of course, did you see her master? He was obviously the highly gossiped about Mr Swift, a scoundrel of low class. Pathetic.

Poor sister, she, of such dignity, has fallen and been forgotten, to be owned by one such as Mr Swift. Poor sister.

I had not any time to answer her, but I realise as my master browses the market place, when she asked that question, my guard had slipped.

My face would have said it all.

So we carry out dignified way home, walking many more necessary miles than the usual side walker for we cannot possibly be seen walking through lower class neighbourhoods. No, couldn't possibly, that would be… ridiculous.

Soon we come to our, rich, white, Christian house, like all the other houses along the street and like all the people who live inside their holy walls. My chain is unbitten and I am allowed to make my way on my own accord. A luxury I am grateful off after the last mounts where I had to live on the chain because of bad behaviour.

The master's Lovely Lady is humming a lullaby in a cat like voice and I know my pups will not be in this room. I trot, making sure to be quite, further down the halls looking for my two pups. I find them upstairs, up on the window sill and looking out at the view of the entire yard and neighbouring gardens.

"Mother!" They cry and tumble their pudgy way over to me; we all sink down into the shaggy mat and rub faces. I remember when I was pregnant, horrified so much that I come down with the flu, that one of my pups would end up looking like my father, not-pedigree to say. Oh, those had been worrying, worrying months. Because I knew my masters loved to flaunt their class…but they were poor on the inside. Their wooden floors are cheap pine not the expensive rosewood of the neighbours, their curtains were hand made by the Lovely Lady to mirror those of the actual manor houses.

Oh, they are certainly high class people, the coats of arms and family crests that decorate our hallways are certainly true. But they have an Uncle Henry see, which wasted the family wealth way on women and adventure. These people chose to put up a fake front, chose a life of internal debt to the banks to purchase this prestigious plot of land.

I was also one of those elements of wealth that they had to substitute on. Everyone around has pedigree, pretentious dogs of all the honourable breeds. I look pedigree, but came at half the price. In every way, perfect for my masters.

That's why I worried, because my masters would not accept a pup who revealed the true inside of the family, that they were cheap and shallow, greedy for social standing.

When I gave birth there were three, cream, cream and grey. The next morning, there was only two.

And so began my bad behaviour.

I have learnt my lesson now. Mourning over one of my pups shall lose me time I could be spending raising my other two.

Sometimes, it's better to just accept it.

I help them waddle down just one of the long halls of our home. We pass an innocent drawing room, the white curtains swaying in the soft wind. Fear shoots down my spine, not matter how much I try to ignore it. This is the room of the deed, this is the room which my owners locked me in, this is the room where the strange male spaniel told me in remorse of what, exactly, my masters expected of me.

Sometimes, it's better to just accept it.

I got two beautiful children out of that deed, but at times I wish it had never happened. It really disintegrates you…to ash.

The steady knowledge that after this litter, he shall be brought around by the human's again, there shall be another litter, than another visit and it shall continue for as long as I continue to be fertile. Yes, ash indeed, like I am a great, beautiful log that has been suddenly dumped onto burning coals. Slowly blackening and peeling away, becoming nothing more than ash.

"What have you been doing while I was away?" I asked my seemingly growing by the day pups. White and red with very long ears, short noses and black eyes; they were the most well breed and pure pups I could ever hope to produce. I was so proud of Silas and Willmare, but the two boys could not hope to ever fill the hole that their grey sister had left. The masters had most assuredly drowned her, as was the case for all unwanted pups.

We are dogs, King Charles Spaniels, who do anything for a treat and shank off a kick. We are breed to be submissive and gutless, as the humans liked their lapdogs to be.

The thing was, we small spaniels descend from gun dogs, beasts who weave amongst the thudding hooves of the hunts and those gun dogs in turn came from the wolf.

And, I think with narrowing eyes as I hear one of my young human masters bounding up the stairs; I am also half street dog.

I have finally become proud of that fact, for while only the tamest spaniels were allowed to breed, only the most vicious street dog had successful pups. I nosed my children into a nearby room and under one of the unused guest beds. The young master coming up the stairs was fond of throwing my offspring up into the air and sometimes failed to catch them in his clumsy, chubby youth.

I crawled to the furthest corner of the bed's dark under belly, lying on my side and allowing Silas and Willmare to suckle the last of my slowing milk. I heaved a heavy sigh, upsetting abandoned cobwebs, and let myself feel disgusted that I felt the need to hide in my own home.

Home. I think I will stop calling it that.

Eventually, with the comfort of the darkness, their full bellies and their mother's warmth, my children drift into sleep. But I, I remain awake, for I have troubles to think through and horrors to keep me from slipping into slumber.

Dreamland is not open for me any more. But it is for them, small and soft, helpless and happy, wonderful and wondering.


	9. A Saturday Swim

She is a great, glossy mass, stretched out in the sunlight, feeling clean and perfect from her recent warm and lavender bath. Silas and Willmare and rolling and grappling with one another about the lawn, ladybugs and grasshoppers fly out of their way in lazy panic.

Collette's eyes close; she feels the strong wind and smells the pollen, she hears the songs of summer. The splashes of the master's children in the sun-twinkling backyard pool, the flutter and gasps of the busy nesting birds and child rearing grass mice.

The rich hound watches her offspring race and tackle, hide with her as their obstacle, and she swells with content. If they keep this up, they will be strong enough to take care of themselves when their time to leave comes.

"Mother! Mother!" Silas calls to her, the words chopped with laughter and gasps for breathe. "Make him stop!" Collette in no such mood to do so; she is drowsy with content and lazy with pleasure. Her fur is being stroked by not only the wind of this day, but also the wind of her days.

The sun soaked days of full bellies and innocent eyes.

Silas batters his brother off and runs towards his mother, slamming into her side and giggling from the safety of the enveloping, protecting presence. Willmare follows, but instead of attacking Silas he changes target and goes for his mother's long ear.

"Play with us Mother!" He pleads through his muffled mouth. With the breath knocked out of her and left ear caught in painful little teeth, she is very much in the revenge seeking mood.

"Rawr!" Collette yells as she rises, slow and intimidating as she can possibly muster with pink bows hanging around her ears. They squeal and run, and she is delighted to discover that, for the first time, she can't actually catch them.

So strong so fast, so handsome and fit! She is every inch the bragging mother you dread to meet.

They roll and squeal and generally pant and play as dogs were born to do. The masters have gracefully climbed out of the pool dripping, towelled themselves dry and disappeared inside for some of their lemonade.

The sun-twinkling pool is left unguarded with gate forgetfully open. As one, their eyes reflect the shine of the surface.

"Swimming lessons!" The mother shouts with glee, racing forwards and coming to the side of the pool. The pups reappear at her side, suddenly unsure and uncertain. This is new and this is different.

She will not allow her children to be dragged out into the world unprepared. She knows her offspring well enough to understand exactly how to get them into the pool under their own will.

"Have I told you boys the story of how the Great Tramp escaped some metal chariots?" They look into her scheming eyes with curiosity, shaking their heads furiously.

"Well, he was racing along the river bed, faster than any horse. But the dog catchers were closing in on their... metal chariots." There were gasps. "Yes, children, as you well know, you cannot out run the metal chariots, you cannot out manoeuvre and you cannot out hide." She looked into their eyes, her face snarling as she bent low to the round. "There is only one way." This was new, she had never mentioned ways to defeat the seemingly invincible metal chariots. "And the Tramp knew what that one weakness was. The metal chariots sink."

"Of course," Willmar whispers under his breath, marvelling at the simplicity of the answer to the unanswerable question.

"Tramp suddenly turned and started to run for the river that he had been running alongside all this time, smirking to himself at how smart he was to have figured the machines weakness out. He dived into the water and swam for the opposite shore. The dog catchers were stuck on the other side, looking like fools. The Great Tramp is too smart to be taken today."

With that she straightened up, swapped back into her regal presence and raised her eyebrow expectantly. The pups looked for her to the water, and with one last glance at one another, they jumped.

A dog can swim naturally, but to be a strong swimmer and a good swimmer, practice is needed. She stayed by, watching them learn and eventually become so confident as to play, she swelled again, still every inch the immodest mother.

Eventually, she called them over as they tired and started to slow, pulling them out of the water by their scruffs, she licked them with pride.

"Well done." They were tired and exhausted, but their mother's approval mattered more than the Sun. She was a distant and haunted dog, it was not often she took the time to play with and compliment them.

"Let's go and hide around the back until you dry, the master doesn't like dogs in his pool."

They wined to her as they sulked away amongst the lemon and orange trees down the far corners of the master's land.

"I'm tired, I don't want to walk this way!"

"Walk or get a hiding from the master, which one do you prefer?" Willmare grumbled under his breath, forever the one with a sour word to say.

Underneath a berry bush and backs against the neighbour's fence, they slept their exhaustion away. Them, the exhaustion of swimming, and her, the exhausting of child rearing. Amongst the overgrown, unattended grass of the back corner, they felt like a hutch of small rabbits in a jungle of soft green.

Her state of resting, half-consciousness was cut short by the sound of pattering paws. The dog next door was on his afternoon run. It was just a habit, every hound had their own, her nameless neighbour which she had never been allowed to meet had the tendency to run right around his fence line just as the sun goes down.

She looked through the sooty leaves of old berry bush and was greeted, sure enough, with the colours of the sunset. Her heart started beating as the running, energetic dog pounded closer, streaming so fast that she never sees a shape when she watches the dog some-days, only a pasting shadow and the dust he leaves behind.

With her fur pressed tight against the fence, possibly tuffs sticking out the other side, she wonders if the dog will notice her. Will they be friendly or aggressive? She wonders which type of pure breed snob they will be.

Collette has made no friends upon arrival, only stiffly called "acquaintances".

They run past, and she sighs. Then they stop, and turn, and start coming back. She holds her breathe and hopes her deep sleeping pups don't stir or bark in their dreams.

Steadily the black shadow, concealed from view by the planks of the fence, comes closer. She can hear them breathing, she can hear them smelling, she can smell them.

It is a male, strong and healthy, two years older than her and fed on a diet of mince and rice. She can smell the power of this dog, now that he is so close, and her heart thunders into overdrive as his shadow looms over her and her fragile pups. She can smell the thousands of hands and dogs whose oils linger in the pooches pelt. A show dog? A service dog?

He starts to scratch at the fence and she attentively lets a hello into the thick tension. The male capable of anything response,

"Well hello there! I have been wanted to meet you for a while now." Every fear drops away with a gush.

This is the first time she meets Juno, a fast friend, and, in two weeks' time, she would realise, her best friend. It really was breath taking how quickly they grew on each other.

He saves her from the ghosts.


	10. A Saturday Surprise

I sat by the fence, talking to Juno about a particularly nasty mess the master's boy twins had caused yesterday. He was listening to me intently while nibbling burs out from his paws.

"Boys, they are trouble," he said to me when I had finished detailing the absolute horror on my lady master's face when she had finally seen the piano. "My master's son used to be such a hooligan. I remember when he was involved with a gang; he snuck me out of the house once to show to his friends back in school. The master had been furious!" He chucked deep in his wide chest, I saw him roll on his back through the gaps, "oh yeah, that's the spot."

I chucked, Juno, so empty headed and loveable. My best friend sat up suddenly, ears perked and muscles stiff.

"Somebody's home," he explained out of the side of his mouth as he dashed off and back inside his master's modest mansion. I stood up and shook my coat out, liking the way my collar rattled and side. Stretching my back and legs as I walked, stiff from an afternoons worth of chatter with Juno, I heading for my own house.

I climbed up the back deck and noticed the master's eldest daughter wringing her hands nervously as she sat at the outdoor table set. I came to her and pressed my nose into her hands, trying to ease her frittering stomach. She took my distraction thankfully and started playing and teasing at my coat, humming and explaining to me softly her problems.

I could offer her no explanation but silent company.

In Juno's house I heard the back door slam as someone came out, the suited man jogged over and leaned his arms on the boundary fence, calling for my master's daughter. She immediately dumped me and walked over hurriedly. I followed at her heels, intensely curious to see if they knew each other. I could smell Juno at the side of the fence beside the boy, obviously doing the same thing.

Our questions were answered when the two smashed their lips together in the way humans do with their mating partner.

"Well this is interesting," I said at the same time Juno woofed an_ I knew it!_

Over the months, the two lovers meet many times along the fence, but in places where they could not be seen. They would walk all the way down to the corners of the yard, so far back that you would not have a hope of seeing them even from the roofs of the main houses. One would jump the fence and together they would talk and embrace in the orchards and neglected shrubbery.

They had a strike of daring one particular day, and the teenage boy lifted not only his love over the fence, but reached down for me as well. What an honour it was, the two laughed as me and Juno met for the first time with no fence between us. Finally, we could play and chase one another like all friends should.

He took me on a tour of his territory, and it was marvellous to explore. I snicker from the other side of the fence as my pups finally noticed where I was, bewilder they tried to get me to tell them how I managed to make it across.

I laughed at them and raced off with Juno, teach them for lazing around all day in sunbeams, trying to escape the coming winter cold.

It was much later when the lady and the man told their families about their mateship.

It had been a fun year, but only after I meet Juno. I own him my happiness I realise with no little delusion.

Weeks later, he off handily remarks about leaving.

"What? Juno, you can't leave me! The boys are staring to grow lazy and rebellious and they snap at me now! You're the only dog who will keep my company these days!" I barked at him, could he at least be more respectful when telling me, instead of his usual off hand manner.

"It's only for a few weeks Collette, the city track has finally been rebuilt after the fire! Aren't you excited!" He slammed his front legs into the ground with over boiling energy while my body, a third his size, shivered in rage and anxiety. I had heard horrible stories of dogs that go without company, going mad with loneliness. How long would it take for me to be overcome, a day? A week? Oh! How I will curl up in the horrible, big, silk bed of the master and watch my sons snore and laze like the no goods they were, desperate for any sort of contact. I howled at the misery of it all.

"Drama queen," Juno muttered from his side of the fence, I huffed at him good naturedly and turned my back on him.

"Maybe I will rethink keeping you as a friend." I said in humour, hoping to make him bite.

"Nice try, but no," Juno said, rolling on his back, his favoured position when lazing in the gardens with me. I sighed and turned back around to him, sad that my ploy was seen through.

"I didn't think you raced actually." I admitted to my friend.

"What made you think that? My master is the biggest and best racer in the entire town!"

"Oh really? Then where is all his dogs then?"

"At his other property."

"Sure they are; and you're here instead of there because…"

"Because I'm his favourite!"

"Sure you are…" I teased, rolling my eyes- as if, more like he wished he was the favourite, he was probably lame or injured.

"Colleeetteee!" I heard Juno childishly whine through the breaks in the fence.

* * *

Because of their children being engaged, her family and Juno's became quite close. One day, on a day that Juno was away "racing" the two families went out on a walk together like they have become prone to do. She and her two sons always came along, as does Juno. Their breeds are signs of nobility, status symbols that the master's love to show.

They walked to this strange place that was absolutely filled with shouting, screaming, jumbling people. She could hear and smell dogs, whirring mechanics and clicking, honking working of sirens and pens.

Soon they made it through and into a special area it seemed Juno's family had reserved for themselves only. They took seats, and for the first time she looked out of her immediate surrounds and observed the background.

It was a greyhound race track. Silas nudged her shoulder, jerking his head down to the muzzled hounds that were being warmed up.

"There's Juno," and as true as day, it was, with the same brown coat, white chest and white front leg which looked like it was in a cast from a distance.

He was wearing a shiny number and his mouth was muzzled tight.

"Well I'll be damned," she whisper, moving as far forward as her lead would allow. Quicker than she expected, the pack of dogs on the track where pushed into boxes and disappear from view. The a loud horn blew, making her jump into the air and her sons laugh, all the humans in the stands started shouting as much as they could and she realised, they were running.

Running faster and more furious than she had ever seen, chasing an object which was only a blur in her eyes. And, three abreast for first place was a black, a grey and Juno.

The announcer screamed into his microphone, Tied for the lead we have Mister Tricky, sister to Johnson's Pride, Rabbit Run who is currently being squeezed back and Baby Darn, a renowned champion tipped to win this race today by a long shot. Behind them is-

If only she could understand their language.

And he did, he did win the race by lengths, streaking out like a horizontal waterfall and moving as if the other's had stopped.

After that day she never teased him again. Juno was just happy to have impressed the pretty spaniel next door who made his heart jump.

Is only he knew how much she truly, actually, properly, _loves_ him for saving her from haunted visions and troubling dreams. She had been going backwards, but he stopped her in her reversing tracks.

Two months later, she is pregnant again. But happy this time, _glowing_ this time like a swollen bitch should. The owners scratch their heads; the stud spaniel hadn't visited…had she…oh, no.

One day she looked out the window and saw a child run by with a young dog at his heels. She looked just like her, except grey.

Collette thinks her master isn't that bad after all. It becomes apparent that he has no interest in getting rid of neither her two sons nor her next litter.

She is happy, resting in the gardens with Juno, finally happy once more.


	11. A Visit Of Change

I recoil into the solitude of the empty kennel, waiting to hear the barks of my cage mates coming home. Today was a day of heights, but now as I slowly come down, I notice that the mechanics of change are in the wind.

I knew the look in my sister's eyes. She, in the end, turned out stronger than me.

It seemed it was time for the change to finally come. The police dogs have started to get restless. Change, you will find, is refreshing while dangerous…it's like cocaine.

"Kelso challenged Oscar," Little Jean told me when they got back, later than usual, from their training. I sat up from my bed.

"They alright?" I asked in concern, causing Little Jean's jaw to drop.

"No! Last time something like this happened it set the pack into turmoil for weeks!" She barked, concerned and twisted up in worry.

"I hope everyone just keeps low," cut in the stoic Dizzy from behind

"I don't know what it is Annette, but for some reason it starts off a chain reaction and everyone suddenly needs to rearrange their rankings and prove themselves all over again."

Over the next few days, there were many threats howled at the moon and many dogs returning to the kennels wrapped in bandages. I was not included; I was some funny presence that wasn't encompassed in this tight migration of aggression.

I realised the cause. Suppression. All day, every day, these dogs are trained to do everything for their trainer and to do it to perfection, yet those things they do, are vicious. They are expected to be vicious dogs that disregard all voices on the field and attack with hell force, yet at the same time, are crumpling to the strange vocal flexes of a specific human. Are you a sheep in wolves clothing, or a wolf encased in wool?

It lasts, because now, in the back of their minds, they are hearing their trainer yell -_maul, hold, search, chase- _and they have started to order themselves around, permanently caught in an attack mode they can't shake out of their ears.

With the mystery of the police dogs settled, I yawned wide and felt satisfied. I waited for my bread and wine trainer to come and take me out to some new human place.

But it seems, the change is still in effect.

Suddenly, they start to see me for the first time; suddenly I have to protect myself from all these desperate dogs trying to dominate. The scungy low class who a frantic for someone of their own to lord over, the high class paranoid at the possibility of an unchecked subject.

I am not one to be pushed around; I am from the rich backyards, the ice cream soil gardens and uncountable bones. I do not take well to these dogs attempts at pushing me down, me, me who was born so high that I did not even realise I was soaring until I tumbled down. Me, me who has a strong sister who looks well and sleek, who has continued to hover amongst the clouds while I have failed.

No, I am not made of the right material to grovel, I am strong. I came out of that vet cage.

I watch them from the corner of my eyeballs, and they start to realise. She is no dog to threaten, no matter how alone and out casted she once was. It is all in the attitude, dear human. Dogs have different systems of social order. We are much more vicious, we have the King and his Queen, than the knights and business men until finally, the slaves.

It is stupid, we are intelligent enough and we should be. But the Kings don't want to have all their power taken away, and so the cycle continues. I glare at Oscar, it is his fault, he is the King to this police pack and he is the driving force. With a shake of his tail he can shatter the ranks and with a soft word, with the power he holds, he could demolish the system. But no, he doesn't, he likes his high perch which he never got a taste of in puppyhood, he likes the power to demand and order, he likes this squirming of the pack. These days are not delightful and these hours are no light anymore.

And still, the time of change drags on.

It is dawn, paler than paper, ivory or bone. There was a crow on the roof, cawing and mocking those below him. Her, ridiculed by the humans for being the bird of dark graveyards and death, is the only one in the morning gathering who can reach up into the air and take solitary flight for the mountains that shine. My wine and bread man is nervous and bubbling underneath, but frustratingly cool and cold on the surface.

I have, for a long time, just waited. Soon the kennels will spew me out and that time smells near.

I help the man in the wheel chair open the door; I get his medication and brace myself when he needs me to get up from where he has collapsed. I open drawers and when he needs his medication, I bark.

I know I have done well, because the man keeps twitching a small, brief smile onto his face and his brain keeps receiving slight jabs of pride chemicals. I heard them talking, I see the papers being signed and the stamps being pressed down. I also meet a new man, one who did not smell of being a trainer or kennel official. He was a real man who I was to help for real, he will not pretend to fall like the one in my test had, when this real man falls, it will be because he is truly suffering.

He stretches his hand out to me and I take the chance to know his scent. He smells of grandchildren and cotton. He is very old and very sick, he will not last long. Leaning heavily on his walking stick, the man shuffles away with what looks like a butler following behind him.

I was taken the next day from my kennel and I knew that this was forever. I had howl goodbyes to my crying friends, I had to leave them to bid their time and bait their traps, if only to keep their heads above water and not drown.

My new master had not gotten from his carriage; instead it was the butler who collected me from the front desk. His white gloves wrapping about my lead with elegance. My trainer bent to my level for his own last goodbye, patting me one last time.

I take in the gorgeous site of his nicotine streaked face, we enjoyed the taste of quiet daylight together, we had abided by our own laws, and we had known each other for true.

Again, I passed hands of ownership like a carton of eggs. But this time, precious eggs, gorgeous eggs, a carton that can, will, save a man's life.

I jumped up the step and into the carriage, scared of how lavish and soft the interior was. But my new master just smiled down at me from where he was, half a body growing out from layers and layers of blankets. I heard him call my name _Brodie_, and pat beside himself, commanding me to jump up next to him.

From up next to this new master, who was fascinating himself with my fur and fiddling with my ears, I could see out the side windows at the streets and land we were passing. I could also see out the front, I watched the two chestnut stallions pull like mighty bulls and clop up and down.

The man continued to fuss and squelch at me like I was a newborn infant, cute and rosy in the crib. I liked his face, I was eager to know what his skin tingled with. He laughed at me and wiped where I had licked him.

From what I could taste, I gave him half a year to live.

We went through town, through neighbourhoods, through farmlands and finally, the great beasts turned down their home road and I realised as I lookout out the window.

If I had been on the ground and my sister soaring through the clouds, well, with one passing of my lead, I have just been catapulted into outer space.

It took some time to reach the mansion; I felt the horses speed up with impatience to get to their stables. We stopped, my master started to lift his blankets off and grab his walking cane when the butler opened the door.

_Come_, I came, waiting on the gravel for my charge to splutter and lean his own way out, too proud to take the butler's hand. Crunching as he walked, my new master set a straight, slow, aged course to the sweeping front doors of his stone castle. It was left to the butler to unclip my chain. He seemed unsure by my new master had been muttering at him to do so, so he had to, hadn't he?

As soon as I heard the things jaws unclench I took off in pursuit of my master, traversing the steps, I was here to monitor his health, I was here if he fell or forgot. Right now I am Brodie, not Annette.

When we came into the foyer, it was all shine and vast like a saltpan. Our footsteps echoed. I could not believe that such wealth and construction existed. He wheezed his way down a lavish hall and into a room. I could smell that this was room was especially for him, a room which stank of his constant presence and no one else's, of his paper and ink and wax seals.

And from the dog bed and water bowl in the corner, this would also become the room that my life will be spent away in. For the next hour, he sat at his proud throne behind his stacked and neat desk, coughing into a hanky and writing scratchily-scratch all over documents and the like. Would this man not rest?

From the amount of awards and trophies that shined down at me from the walls, rest was not in this new master's vocabulary.

So I heaved down into this new, luxurious bed and slept, his scent filling my nose with worry.


	12. A Visit Of Breifness

I scamper through the house after the man, who has just recently gained himself a wheelchair and is having immense fun chasing his numerous grandchildren around the foyer.

I give up my chase and sit on the sidelines, watching and waiting for him to tire and return to the silence of his office.

His grandchildren are things to behold. At first there was one, but then she disappeared and came back with five in tow, then seven, then thirteen. There are a lot of them; all dressed in the finest clothes and jewellery, but yet, all so unruly and ruggedly wild. I watch my master wheel after a particularly young child, squealing his head off like a piglet in a slaughterhouse. There is pink delight- pure delight- on the children's cheeks as they scream around and out manoeuvre their grandfather.

Sometimes the master gets the need to sit out in the gardens and bask in the sun. We will sit together out under the cherry trees and overlook the stables and pastures. Here I see the grandchildren, here is how I know they are unruly and ruggedly wild, and for they are out there, down in the creek netting bait fish and up in the trees looking for bird's nests, upon horses that are huge and enormous.

These wild children, how Annette longs to join their fun like the estate hounds have. But she, right now, is Brodie. She is not a simple children's dog, she is a service dog. She is the master's dog. She's the master's nurse; she's his life support system before machines made their medical entrance.

Those months of excessive richness were full of boredom, but at the same time, wonder. A kennel official would sometimes come to check that I had no become faulty.

I had to bark at him five times, generally on the busy days full of visitors and grandchildren. He fell and I needed to help him up three times and since he got his wheel chair, I've needed to turn all the lights on and open all the doors for him since.

One night, he was dressed up smart and I as well had been brushed to perfection by the maids. We rode in a more polished and lavish carriage than usual with the two finest horses on the farm.

It was an event. An awards night that went for hours, full of small entrees and glove muffled clapping, women in glittering, door jamming gowns and energetic hosts. I sat like a statue beside by master's chair. Many people were curious, and upon seeing my behaviour, were impressed. Why do you have a dog there man? Who trained your dog good fellow?

Half a year later my master was admitted to hospital with chest pain. He died over night and I was collected by the service dogs association, ready for the next person on the list. The kennel masters ticked under their breath a bit, a dog was meant to only have one master, I was not meant to be passing through hands this quickly.

For two days I was put in the kennels, but in the "trained" part of the facility. The floor was coated in newspapers and the dogs next to me were old. There is a radio down the end that is always on, playing its melodies to us through the day and dawns.

While it was stirring to be back in these kennels, it was unsettling and my gut just seemed to know that this was not where I belonged. It was a house, not a home.

One day, I woke up and saw my dead master. In the newspapers, he was smiling from his wheelchair with me at his side. He was in the suit that he had been in during the dinner and on his lap sat all the awards he had won over the night. He had been a presence in life, the man everyone wanted to be around, kind and generous to all in such unbelievable amounts. But he was not a man who had the empathy to understand or spare a thought for a dog. He had been taken with me, a new toy, but after I was just an ignore presence; I was just the dog who had seldom got a pat for her efforts. He was not a dog person, nor even an animal person; he had been a people person through and through.

My next master was also a man, one who smelled of clipboard and antiseptic.

He was a doctor; he was the best doctor in the state supposedly. He had a wife and two young, baby children which loved me very much. He had a home that screamed cosy and modest. They already had a pet before me, a bulldog named Boo who was the most charming dog I had ever met.

It was Sunday; the wife was digging in the vegetable patch, the children in the summer rain mud and the master reading the newspaper on the deck. I sat with Boo in the seasonal flower bed, enjoying the delicate feel of their petals under our ribs.

"The Lady took me out to the markets yesterday while you were with the master at work." Boo told me in his slurred, splatted voice. "I meet someone who recognised you scent on me." I waited for him to go on, was it family? Was it the fat dog from the kennels? Was it Little Jean or Dizzy?

"He said his name was Oscar, and to tell you that little Jeans and Tizzy became police dogs in the end." Boo shook himself out as bees started to crawl over his coat, sending drool flying.

"Really?" I hadn't expected such a gesture of kindness. "Did he say if he made it as well?" I ask in curiosity.

"Well," Boo chuckled once, "he was wearing a police harness and leading a policing man around."

"Ah," I tilted my head politely to him, "well thank you for telling me Boo."

"Sur' right malady."

This life, of me sitting under my masters desk in half-sleep, hidden from his patients so that they never know, resting in the ladies well-loved gardens, playing with the young but growing children and finding fine company in Boo, went on for the rest of my life unbroken by visits.

Until the end, when it was a Visit of Death.

But it's okay, really.

I didn't need to have found them all like I wanted to. I didn't need to reunite with Danielle like I promised her. I did not need to search for the fat dog's pups out to tell them stories of a mother who most assuredly was put to sleep while they were still young. I did not need to have romance, I did not need to have my own litter, I did not need to see my cinnamon lady or meet for one last time with my bread and wine man. I did not need to see my first home and first family again, I did not need these things to be happy.

It was a brief life, but I had lived it fully.

Some part of me knows I am lying, but the rest of me refuse to agree. I try to be humble about it like every dog should, but I had always dream of more, always knew I had the capability to do just as much as the masters.


	13. Dogs Drowning

He sees Annette, out of the corner of his eye. But she does not see him. She does not even recognise him, but that is understandable. After all, his scent changed after puberty and he is covered in disfiguring scars.

For someone to recognise him, it would have been a miracle.

He watches from his porch as his sister continues across the street with a stiff boarded woman. She came and went like smoke, he had a chance to call out and let her know (I'm here, I'm alive, I'm fine). But he didn't. He just did not possess the energy or the will; he did not possess anything these days.

The Sun could not warm him and the flowers could not brighten his day. It is a dark and lonely place, this other side of happiness.

At night, he and Angle curl up in their basket. Sometimes he doesn't even know she's there. Sometimes he does not understand why he's here at all. He hasn't noticed yet, but he has not talked or looked at Angle for four weeks.

She's okay; she is fine with being the pillow that is warmer than the others for a reason Scamp doesn't know why. She has had her fun and adventure with Scamp, she had his time and love. Now as a grown dog, all she wants is pups, and she had managed to get that out of him just before his mind slipped away.

She licks her swollen belly, looking at the pink and swelling teats, soon, soon they will be coming.

Her and Scamp are both small dogs, the basket has enough space for the new additions she has managed to grow.

She's okay; she is fine with this. After all, it was him not her who had to watch the young child of the master's be killed- be torn apart. It was him not her who held the crazed dogs off for as long as he could, but was just too small, was just not strong enough, and so had to listen to the screams of the young child. The two had been chasing squirrels and the next moment…

Scamp called himself a failure after that, he called himself a disgrace, a dog was man's protector, they're best friend -he might as well just not call himself a dog.

Angle licks her tummy again; it's started to hurt in the last few hours. She hopes they take after Scamp, in those rugged looks he used to have before the mauling. She knows she has grown ugly over time, her fur getting thick and coarse, her teeth buckling and yellowing, her snout developing more and more squashed and pig like.

She spends her time praying for her pup's good fortune, because their father is too far gone for one small force such as God to intervene his road of self-loathing.

The pups, a girl and boy, grow up with a helicopter Mother they can't shake off and quickly learn to detest, as well as a father who can't even recognise or name them. Samuel and Lucy are more than happy when it comes for their turn to leave home.

Angle very quickly sinks into depression besides Scamp.

This is what happens when a child is killed young and the family falls apart, people say that the parents are suffering, but, it's usually the dogs that end up the worst of them all. They are attuning so much more than humans; they are known to take on humans feelings. Dogs rely on humans to care and feed and play and give them a good life.

If the masters are too busy drowning their sorrows in wine and violence…well than...

No matter how intelligent, you cannot transvers the fence, you cannot break off your chain and you cannot _ever_ shake yourself of depression if you are alone.


	14. Happy Camper

She sees Annette, but there is never a chance to yell out. After all, Annette is flying past on a tramp and she, Danielle, is amongst the stalls of the Farmer's Market. There was never a hope.

Danielle is a simple dog, the simpler the better. She does not linger nor wonder. Those things can draw a dog into dark places. No, to live a good life, you must concentrate on the future, and forget that you could have it better. Forgive you're human if she is incompetent and forget all the bad that the world has gifted you with.

Forget and forgive.

The Lady sells her shallots and carrots with hard fists as Danielle, the toy dog, watches on. The master is back on the farm, shearing the sheep as Vicky, Ladle, Samson and Jack watch on, the work dogs.

She will come home and sit in the ladies lap as the old girl knits. The work dogs will come home and curl up in the leaking dog house made out of an old water tank. They hate her for having the fireplace and she hates them for having the adventure.

But she forgets and forgives. Hearts desires stay in the heart, they are not meant to be chased. She may dream every night of a life of discovering and temple treasures, but that does not mean she should try.

Who is she kidding, she likes this lap and it is the lap that she shall always have, up until her dying day.

When the farm dogs finally get her alone and bite her neck open.

Her motto is vicious, she forgives them even when she is bleeding to death, she forgot they hatred her and strayed too far from the lap.

* * *

_A/N: If it feels rushed towards the end than that is because it was. I wanted it over and out of my way._(Alt-J - Ripe and Ruin)_ I suggest you listen, I heard it and though it smoothed the whole story out nicely. __Thankyou reader for making it to the end, a true solider you are. Review your criticism so I can improve in future fan fictions please._


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